


The Consecrated Grounds of a Black Hole

by seterasilence



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Aziraphale Has a Vulva (Good Omens), BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), BAMF Crowley (Good Omens), Climate Change, Crowley Has A Vulva (Good Omens), Cybernetics, Cyberpunk, Dystopia, Established Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), F/F, Female-Presenting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Female-Presenting Crowley (Good Omens), Futurism, Good Omens Big Bang, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), Ineffable Wives (Good Omens), Longing, Male-Presenting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Male-Presenting Crowley (Good Omens), Modified Humans, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Romance, Violence, black holes, for like a hot second tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:09:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22534513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seterasilence/pseuds/seterasilence
Summary: More than three centuries have passed since the Apocalypse-That-Wasn't, and Crowley and Aziraphale are still on the run from Heaven and Hell. In a dystopian cyberpunk future, Aziraphale begins to decode an enigmatic ancient text tucked in the depths of cyberspace, leading to disastrous consequences. As Aziraphale’s divinity begins to fade and Crowley’s occult desires intensify, both must fight to stay safe and together. When mechanically modified humans - armed with the combined knowledge from their old bosses and weapons of this new age - begin to target them, Aziraphale and Crowley are forced to decide if it all follows an Ineffable Plan or if their old sides have wised up as to what can be created and destroyed in this brave new world.Written for the Good Omens Big Bang 2019 with phenomenal artwork by @Papipoppy, and gorgeous animation by @Songbird-Of-Eden. Beta'd with love by @insertnerdyjokehere and @TheSleuth. The collaboration team of a lifetime. Big kudos to the Good Omens Big Band Mods for absolutely everything. Thank you!Animation by @Songbird-Of-Eden: https://youtu.be/zt7C7IhFlfE
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 56
Collections: Good Omens Big Bang 2019





	1. Midnight Chariot

**Author's Note:**

> This story was gleefully written for the Good Omens Big Bang 2019, with gorgeous illustrations by @Papipoppy, alongside a beautiful animation and stills by @Songbird-Of-Eden.
> 
> Yes, I hate tiny sticky notes just as much as Crowley.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/186751841@N02/49476958323/in/dateposted-friend/)

The black car raced through the bioluminescent streets of London. Purple and blue glitter lights cascading from the AI dance halls and data cyberstations refracted off the sleek bonnet like oil slicks. Crowley bared blood-red lips as she shifted the gears of her midnight chariot, gunning for the hologram of a giantess blocking the street. The hologram's golden dress barely covered the rail-thin projection as she held the newest Tech-Nashi MK2 cellphone to her ear and pouted her lips. "Bloody marketing," Crowley said, her foot leveling the gas pedal with the floor, driving straight for the projection. The hologram shattered into small pixels around the Bentley, like wild, unplaced stars.

The engine's roar ricocheted between tall skyscrapers—some metallic-chic and glowing neon, others crumbling and yellow-gray. People lingering outside the establishments paused to listen to the sound of an era when cars driven by humans were commonplace, a time when the Thames was a river instead of a delta to the sea. Above, pod-cars slipped silently to their destinations, all electric and automated, and while Crowley's road rage had subsided without the traffic to keep it honed, sometimes she missed the old ways. Fingers punched into the air, screeching around mini-vans, chasing the high of running a red light. Such chaos she used to create.

Not that chaos didn't run rampant here. Or temptation. Envy simmered under a layer of lust for the newest tech, wrath when it couldn't be had. Pride at wanting to appear able without it. These vices drifted past her, like the wind howling outside her rolled-down window.

A rush, driving this fast. The way gravity pulled and shifted as she careened around the corners. She'd felt it in Rome, her white robes billowing around her as her horses charged across the stadium. Once, she'd run so fast her mortal body had given out, her calves twitching as she'd sprawled on wet grass, panting as she re-lived the sensation of her long legs eating up the ground. Woven into the veins, this need for speed. Her personal highway of arteries pumped adrenaline into her bloodstream like petrol, made the sparkplugs of her heart fire. A quiver of excitement curled in her stomach.

For a time, she flattered herself the inspiration for Nike. A winged deity, transformed into a shoe brand.

The cement changed into sharp carbon-plastic, and through the windscreen, a transportation tube shot forward beneath her, the electric light blinking bright as daylight and illuminating the road. She let out a delighted cry, knowing she could drive like this all night. Windows down. Long curls swept back in the wind. Just on the edge of clipping a building, the tires squealing and leaving black fang marks smearing the glass, plastic, and cement—

 _Reckless, my dear_. The familiar voice eased through her high, making her grin wider. Ah, the wise Athena tempering her wild ways.

_Damn right, angel._

She raced through an urban district toward the seawall bracketing the city: another white wall spackled with bird shit and pockmarked from acid rain, keeping the hungry ocean from drowning this futuristic Eden. Crowley's tongue flicked out, tasting the salt on the air. So strange, smelling the ocean this close to London. Every whiff brought her back to the cottage in the Downs. Their cottage. Eaten by a ravenous tide that eroded the chalk cliffs.

 _What else will climate change steal from us_ , the headlines had moaned. Steal, no shit. Think of my house, the stones now tumbled into the sea, ocean-smooth by now, rounded and forgotten. Our first home. She missed it: the sun beams filtering through the old windows, the soft breeze whispering through the trees surrounding the garden, her feet sneaking into an angel’s lap, nudging the spine of a book and prompting a fond huff from beloved lips. The stupid tartan sofa that had somehow managed to follow them from the bookshop to the countryside. The only reason she tolerated it then was because she’d spent a good century breaking it in, ensuring her sharp hips always had a soft spot to lounge.

The city fell away, leaving her cruising through the blackness of docksides and quiet shipping lanes. Steel containers rose into the air, marked with spray paint. She slowed, the sound of drones canvassing the air space replacing the roaring wind, and snapped her fingers. Silence suddenly filled the industrial neighborhood, all cameras turning a blind eye to the new figure standing under a single lamp post. Waiting. Waiting for her.

Crowley cut the engine, the headlights flaring bright for a moment before dimming away. She leaned forward, her arms crossing over the top of the steering wheel. Her tongue ran slowly over her upper lip, drawn in sharp and precise red. Now that she was a freelance agent and technically free from Hell, calling on her demonic powers hadn't posed a problem, but the uneasiness of relying on them never left. Each miracle meant someone, somewhere in the Pit, might be taking notice. Might be putting a sticky note in a file somewhere. She'd invented sticky notes—the tiny ones. Barely any space to write on plus the limited glue? A demon's delight. Watching the slips of paper float off a stack of memos was almost as good as gluing coins to the sidewalk.

Hell remained silent. The car door squeaked as she opened it and slithered out, her heels clicking on the cobblestones. Leftovers from an older time, these round rocks, a time of horses and industry. The figure stuck his hands in his pockets, leaned toward her as she came closer. “AJ,” he said with a wink, giving her a good one-over. "Lookin' lovely this evening."

Curls tossed over her shoulder, then. Wicked grin. Tight pants with rips along her thighs and knees tonight, the kind that showed off her legs. Short-waist jacket, loose Pat Benatar t-shirt underneath showing off just a touch of the black cage bra. She wished she’d had the sense to be a woman in the ‘80s—the things she could’ve worn. Satan, imagine all her hair, sprayed and teased. “The one and only," she drawled.

The man shook a thin plastic bag at her and held it out. “All here for you, love.”

_Crush his bones._

She staggered, her smile slipping as she pushed the compulsion down. The voice had been with her since she emerged from the abyss at the beginning of the world, a fresh-faced demon scarred from the sulphur pits of Hell.

 _Only one person calls me love,_ the voice snarled. _Only the golden-bright._ _Make him understand that._ _Crush his bones._

Instead, she pointed a long finger at him, her black coffin-shaped nail bending the light like it would off the Bentley’s bonnet. “Don’t be cheeky. I don't mix business with pleasure.”

“Sorry.” He gave a lopsided smile. Crowley snatched the bag from his hands even as the Hell inside her ground out that he didn't sound sorry at all. That maybe she should teach him the meaning of the word.

Opening the bag, a familiar, calming smell wafted into the air. She dragged the scent of green and orange blends over her tongue. The clink of tins and small wrapped plastic mounds. Oh. Her angel would be so pleased.

 _Yes,_ the Abyss whispered. _But I can have it all, see. Render the human into a lump of coal and make him an additional present. Put the coal in the bookshop's fireplace. Warm my angel with it, too. Like at Christmas._

Crowley closed her eyes again, erasing the image of the human holiday—the angel sipping hot cocoa while being surrounded by twinkling fairy lights and ghastly gifts. These hellish urges were part of her, but she could deny them, shackle them, keep them hidden. Even when they screamed for freedom.

The silence stretched. Crowley opened her eyes to see the man's smile had faded. He swallowed hard and said, "Always come through, me. See there? Ceylon. Earl Grey, too. Fine stuff, that. Can’t get that anywhere else but through me, right, AJ? Harder and harder these days with capitalistic-shit waging their trade wars.”

"Almost makes me miss the East India Company," Crowley said, shaking her head in disbelief, shaking the vision from her mind. "Oi, thanks for this on such short notice. I was running low."

"'Course," the man answered in an uncertain tone. He held out his phone. She pressed hers against the smooth screen, transferring the credits between their accounts. “Pleasure doing business with you, Antonia. Sorry ‘bout all that earlier." He rubbed his neck with his hand. "Didn't mean any harm."

“Yeah, yeah," Crowley said and threw him a lazy salute. The two turned away from each other and went their separate ways into the night.

***

A sigh of relief escaped her as she parked the Bentley outside A.Z. Fell's Archives and Rare Bookshop and saw Aziraphale had left the light on. She stopped a few paces outside the front door, leaned over, and held her hand out above the pavement. Below her palm, the warding circle began to glow: a banishing sigil, keeping out any angelic forces that didn’t begin with A and end in Ziraphale. She smudged the circle, dissolving the magic, and then stepped inside. Bending again, she re-drew the line, feeling the thrum of demonic power activate the ring once more.

The whole two-step authentication system had been at Crowley's insistence, an idea modeled after beginner cybersecurity protocols. Aziraphale had uttered an unbelievable sigh when she presented the idea, irritated that they would both have to tag-team the system, but see, the angel just didn't understand where Crowley's paranoia stemmed from. For her to understand, there had to be a bookshop in flames and no Aziraphale.

The second sigil within the first one banned occult forces from entering the bookshop. Crowley strolled passed the line Aziraphale had broken for her, turning back around to re-ignite the sigil. No demons beyond a single one beginning with C and ending in Rowley could enter. Like the drawbridge raising up and leaving a moat of power separating any—and she meant _any_ —ethereal or demonic force from coming for them. It had been over three centuries since the Armageddon-That-Wasn't, sure, but she wasn't taking any chances. Not since last time.

Inside, she paused and kept the plastic bag hidden behind her back. Shucking her coat off one-handed, she followed the blue glow emanating from deeper within the shop. Moth to the Satan-damned angelic flame. At least she'd come to terms with it, this deep yearning that never waned.

She paused next to the ancient cash register and laid two fingers against the framed yellowing paper hanging above it. Rituals ruled Crowley's life these days—superstitions like the sigils encircling the bookshop, the small—fuck, she'd never call it a _prayer_ —but the small fucking oath she pledged before this government-issued document that represented an eternal vow she'd made with Aziraphale.

Crowley had hung the receipt of marriage there, a proclamation in case anyone had any ideas. The duplicate had been stashed upstairs in their flat. A triplicate was stored somewhere only the demon could get to, tied with ribbon alongside the other official human paperwork binding her life to Aziraphale's. The fourth and final copy had been secured in a black box and buried like treasure. She'd have to be desperate to give up its location and even then, she might just take the latitude and longitude to her grave.

Call her paranoid? Sure, whatever. Aziraphale, after patiently explaining that their vows wasn't returnable like a couch, had put a stop to Crowley requesting a fifth copy. Ridiculous angel. Didn't Aziraphale know treasure hunters were a real thing, what if they sussed out the fourth copy's location through nefarious means? It would take another Flood if someone tried to force her to renege on all this paperwork. No one was returning _her._

The blue glow grew stronger as Crowley wove to the back of the bookshop. She popped her hip against the wall, taking in the sight of Aziraphale hunched in a chair, the whir of her fingers cascading over a keyboard. How long had it taken Crowley to get Aziraphale to use a computer? Probably at the same time when the angel couldn't navigate the outside world without using endless miracles. This time, Crowley's smile was soft.

Text cascaded down the hologram screen, bracketed by other open tabs. A plug-in wire dangled from the screen and hooked into the glasses perched on Aziraphale's nose, the white sheen of the lenses proving the angel had jacked into cyberspace to study the text on a closer level. Baby steps. One day, Crowley would have this whole place wireless, but today would not be that day. She eased into the room quietly, her smile widening as she remembered the shock Aziraphale had worn when Crowley showed her that a whole world of literature existed online. Untapped, aching, and gorgeous prose that never reached the wood pulp pages of a physical printed book.

 _Ebooks, Crowley dear, have you heard of that? This self-publish business? This scanning and uploading of ancient texts? This free publishing of new stories in shared worlds? Can you fathom it? I had no idea. How much time I've wasted re-reading Austen...oh dear, I shouldn't say that as I do so enjoy a good Austen_ , _but darling, if this was one of yours, well, I applaud it. You've always been so clever._

Understanding the internet had become a top priority for the angel after that. It was like the Library of Antioch reborn. Aziraphale printed and bound these new books, nestling academic papers and small press content alongside ancient manuscripts. Crowley couldn't believe it when her wife—her wife!—started to make friends in online circles, when her wife reluctantly agreed to scan and upload versions of her books to share. When her wife sent the physical texts abroad, all with a strict return policy that included an unusual footnote declaring an unnamed demon might come to their door with a boxcutter if the manuscripts didn’t come back in one piece.

Serpentine, now. Crowley slipped passed her angel and put her black-market goods on the kitchen counter. Crowley's domain, that: stainless steel, sleek granite, gray towels and black appliances. She turned the kettle on. Sneaking back to the absorbed angel, she clamped down on the urge to cackle and wrapped her arms boa-tight around her wife's cream-clad shoulders. Pressed a lipstick kiss to the flushed cheek. Aziraphale hummed, her bluebell eyes blinking away from the screen as slid her mouth over Crowley's in welcome.

"You're home late," Aziraphale murmured and Crowley let her heels do the talking, looming over her angel, her legs crossed. Aziraphale glanced down, her eyes dragging up the ripped jeans to the golden eyes. "I missed you," Aziraphale whispered.

"Sappy, that." Crowley flung herself into the empty chair next to Aziraphale, slinging her legs into the angel's lap. Black strappy heels crossing, toes pointing.

Aziraphale smoothed her hands over Crowley's ankles, the bones jutting like knives. _Could you cut yourself on me, angel?_ "You look marvelous, my dear," Aziraphale said. "But, some might say you're starting to look like me. Pat Benatar, really?"

Crowley plucked the front of her shirt. "This is vintage, angel."

"And my waistcoat wasn't?"

"That was antique. This is style." Crowley grinned, eyeing Aziraphale's one-button suit jacket that had been a reluctant replacement for the angel's beloved coat and tartan bow tie. When they switched, the articles simply didn't fit her anymore, not with her slimmer shoulders and larger bosom. The poor seams finally crumbled after one too many miracles.

"It's from the 1980s, dearest, really."

"You don't like it?" Crowley flexed her ankles, digging the heel gently into Aziraphale's thigh.

"I like it very much," Aziraphale whispered, her white-blonde hair falling into her face. Short in the back, just long enough in the front to brush her chin, the curls weighed down into waves.

Crowley preened, pleased with the attention, as the kettle began to scream. "Devil," she murmured, swinging her legs out and leaping to care for it. When she returned, she slid the steaming teacup at Aziraphale's elbow and threw a silent snarl that Aziraphale had jacked back into the system, her hands swiping through different web searches at a rapid rate.

"What's all this, then?" she demanded, waving a hand at the screen and surrounding projections without really looking at it.

"I'm not sure," Aziraphale said, her fingers cupping under her chin, her pink mouth pouting. "Fred sent this encrypted package to me, and once I cracked it, I found nothing but gibberish. Which is odd because I can make out certain words, but others are completely foreign and you know I'm fluent in many languages. My French may be rusty, but my Japanese is exemplary..."

Crowley rolled her eyes as the angel chattered on. Fred. She fucking hated Fred. That bespectacled student from some university or other who enjoyed taking her angel out to brunch so they could discuss the best archival glue for mid-century bookbinding, who made her angel slave into the night over translations of browned folio pages to complete his thesis on some historical rubbish. Rue the day that stupid human darkened their door, Crowley wished she'd struck with venom instead of inviting the man inside, Satan, _why_ had she teased Aziraphale into being a real proper nice angel and entertaining a customer for a spell...

Well, most of Crowley's good intentions ended with her in the shitter. Why should that one be different?

"Crowley, love. Are you listening?"

"'Course, angel. Gibberish, right?"

"More like an absurd meld of ancient languages. I thought English was a bastardized language, _honestly._ Fred stumbled across it on one of those online conversation gatherings—"

"Chat forum, angel."

"—and he claimed it hadn't been infected with a virus, but truly, if it was anyone else I wouldn't believe them. He couldn't decrypt it, but I managed to, but darling, inside it's just chicken scratch that I've never seen before. I can somewhat make out something that might be Enochian? Hebrew? It's been giving me such a dreadful headache all day." Aziraphale lifted the tea cup, the china dainty between her manicured hands, and took a sip. Steam fogged her glasses. Pleasure melted her face, her lips curling as she sighed in contentment. "Oh, this is divine. Wherever did you get it? I thought there was a ration."

"A ration," Crowley hissed. "Rations can't stop me. Demon, here."

"I do hope you didn't create too much trouble."

 _"So_ much trouble. Yet, you're avoiding me," Crowley mourned, gesturing toward the screen. "Ignoring me, angel. I go to all this trouble for you and your tea time and I've been _abandoned."_

Aziraphale took her glasses off and set them gently on the table. The holographic text came to a stop. "I'm so unappreciative, aren't I? After how good you've been to me."

"Going on and on about Fred, of all people. And all the wiles that have gone unthwarted, Aziraphale. Think of the wiles."

Aziraphale took another sip. Her eyelashes swept up—Crowley's mouth went dry, she swore they were golden at the roots, black at the tips—fixating Crowley with storm-blue eyes, purple circles darkening around them as if the angel hadn't slept. "Let me make it up to you," Aziraphale said.

Crowley slid off her chair and settled on the angel's lap, her legs bracketing Aziraphale's trousers and turned her back to the screen. "You can try," she whispered, "but I've been forgotten."

"Shameful," Aziraphale murmured, one hand resting on Crowley's hip, the other hand trailing up her waist. "I'll take my punishment with aplomb. What will it be?"

Hell hummed with pleasure inside Crowley at the suggestion, the demonic darkness writhing with the urge to claim and covet and make the angel remember who she belonged to—

"This," she said pointing to her collarbone. Over six thousand years of Hell yammering at her was nothing compared to this devotion she felt for Aziraphale. The angel was her Helios, galloping across the night sky with a rose-colored dawn flowing from her heels. Casting sunlight into the abyss of Crowley's damned heart, giving her the strength to forge shackles to bind this Hell within her, this twisted divinity that had been burned and ruined.

Aziraphale laid her mouth along Crowley's collarbone. "Dreadfully cruel," she whispered against Crowley's skin. "How shall I recover?"

"Here," Crowley whispered, touching her neck. She swept her long curls to one side to clear a path, letting the red tresses tumble down one shoulder. A burning blush heated her cheeks. She'd never been good at games like this, this whole pouting nonsense, couldn't hold out long enough to make it worthwhile when all she could think about was Aziraphale's mouth, Aziraphale's hands, Aziraphale doing what Aziraphale did best.

Aziraphale kissed her way up to the spot and sucked gently. Crowley tried not to buck her hips. She would be good. She started this and she would last through it. She wouldn't falter. She was a demon, for fuck's sake. Her reputation must exist somewhere.

"Here." Her voice wobbled as she touched her lower lip. Damn. Worthless, she was. Couple kisses and she became, fuck, _pliant._

"Relentless," Aziraphale added, her eyes shining as she slid her lips over her wife's. Hands slid through Crowley's red hair, the golden snake adorning her left ring finger catching on the locks, tugging just so.

Crowley hummed in happiness, parting just enough to make the kiss deeper. "Absolved," she finally whispered, shy. "You're forgiven, angel."

"Praise Somebody," Aziraphale teased—and there it was again, Aziraphale as the golden chariot parting the darkness and bringing the orb of the sun into Crowley's world. Lipstick smeared across the angel's mouth—a spot of red dawn. Crowley's heart wheezed at the sight. Marked. Hers.

"Angel, please."

"Please, what?" Aziraphale spread slow kisses down Crowley's jaw, her fingers tracing the exposed straps of Crowley's cage bra, dipping inside.

Crowley shuddered, heat licking her insides. "Take me upstairs." Satan, could she be whimpering?

Aziraphale's ministrations against her skin paused. "The punishment continues, I see," she said, sounding grave.

"Not a punishment." Crowley whispered. Hell laughed wildly from its prison, making her feel raw. Crowley knew Aziraphale didn't truly believe this love was a punishment, but damn Crowley's questioning soul, she needed confirmation. "Right, Aziraphale?"

Aziraphale pulled back, her steady gaze holding Crowley's until Crowley wanted to shrink and disappear. Satan's sake, why did she have to take things so literally? Why couldn't she just play along? She knew Aziraphale loved her, so why did she need, _fuck,_ this validation?

"You're a treasure, my love. The best thing that's ever happened to me." Aziraphale's arms tightened, holding Crowley closer. "Never forget that."

"Just trying to butter me up," Crowley muttered, grateful to be back on solid ground. Deflection she could do. Master of sarcasm, her. Back in control, check.

"And so very attractive," Aziraphale continued as if she hadn't heard her. "Darling, I want you upstairs with nothing on but those shoes. What do you think?"

"Your request has been approved," Crowley said and notarized it with a kiss.


	2. Celestial Clinics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter artwork by @Papipoppy.

The annoying titter of Fred's voice woke Crowley. As she stretched against the sheets, she mulled on using her powers for true evil—at this point, she'd glue first edition pages of Oscar Wilde to the sidewalk and watch the academic follow her breadcrumb trail to somewhere _other_ than the bookshop.

Aziraphale's softer tone broke through Fred's excited question and Crowley decided she'd had enough. This frustration couldn't be siphoned onto her plants anymore—they looked too frightened and luxuriant these days as it was. She was putting her foot down. Sure, Fred could take the year to live in London with exclusive access to A.Z. Fell's Archives for research, but Crowley deserved one morning uninterrupted by humans. She wanted one morning where she didn't wake alone and grumpy. As of now, he was banished. Banished, she said!

Stumbling to her feet, she miracled on black leggings and a tunic that slipped off her shoulder and padded downstairs on bare feet. Aziraphale and Fred sat in front of the hologram screen, two cups of tea cooling between them, their heads bent in deep conversation. A snarl twisted Crowley's unpainted lips, and she stomped around the two of them, sliding an extra chair next to Aziraphale and plopping her feet in the angel's lap. _Remember this,_ she wanted to say. _Remember how my legs wrapped around you last night, how my heels dug into your back, your mouth on my breast, remember._

Aziraphale turned and gifted her a sunbeam smile, making Crowley slink low into the chair, ashamed at her stomping. Honestly, there’d been other humans over the centuries enamored with the angel, so why did she feel so raw about this one? Fred gave Crowley a tiny wave.

"Good morning, my dear," Aziraphale murmured. "I hope we didn't wake you." The angel then stroked her shins, as if answering the unspoken question. _I remember. Darling, do I ever._

"Hard not to be woken by Babylonian script this and Assyrian writ that. Riveting stuff," Crowley said, taking Aziraphale's teacup out of spite and tasting the sugared concoction. Heaven above. Why did Crowley go to all the trouble to procure the high-end black-market stuff when Aziraphale desecrated it like this? Sure, sugar was scarce, leaving Aziraphale mournful without sweet pastries and decadent chocolates, but Crowley never thought the angel’s sweet tooth would steep so low as to put sugar in her tea.

Aziraphale leaned closer, waiting. Crowley relented, jutting her chin up for a gentle kiss. "We were analyzing the particulars of the text Fred sent me. There's symbols and words from languages all over the world, but then embedded behind it are words I've never seen before," Aziraphale explained, her hand running down her pressed suit jacket. She straightened the bow tied at her throat. "I'm positively stumped."

"Hmm," Crowley said, waving the sugar in the tea away with a few wiggling fingers, then giving up completely and making it a dark espresso. Better.

"It's so familiar," Aziraphale continued, "but I can't put my finger on it. Could it be a Rosetta stone of sorts? Different languages translating each other?"

"Could you imagine?" Fred said, his mousy face broad and open with the dream of it. He shoved his glasses up his nose and tapped the side of the frames, as if running through some kind of menu. "Maybe we should compare the Rosetta Stone markings with this, I've got the director's number here, I could patch her in, see if we could get in to see the Stone—"

"But why bury it in a chat forum?" Aziraphale fretted, her voice dripping frustration. "Where’s the original? Based on the languages I can make out, it must be absolutely ancient, most likely carved on a proportionately large tablet. The ability to craft symbols to even upload it online must have been a monumental task itself. I do hope they're taking care of the original properly—" Her voice cut off, her face twisting as if tasting something unpleasant. "Excuse me, dears. I need a moment."

Aziraphale eased Crowley's legs off her lap and slipped off in the direction of the bathroom. The door shut with a quiet click. Fred's face screwed up with sympathy and he fiddled with the wires looping out of his wrist that jacked into the computer. A glaze swept over Fred's eyes as he jacked in the system to study the text on a miniscule level. Crowley sipped her espresso and tried not to glare. 

"’Suppose congratulations are in order," Fred said finally, breaking the silence cleanly. His eyes faded back to hazel and turned to Crowley.

"How do you mean?" Crowley asked, throwing her hair up in a bun. She didn't wear her sunglasses so much anymore, especially after animal eyes had been the _thing_ to sport fifty years ago. No one thought it strange that she'd kept her so-called alterations.

Fred shot her an uneasy look. "I mean, it's been pretty regular. Every morning at ten and then come again around two in the afternoon. My sister's hormones were the same. Steady as clockwork." Fred paused and licked his lips. "Congratulations, mate. It's a big step getting a permit to begin with."

"Permit?" Crowley felt like a parrot. She finally got why God told her to fuck off, after all. She was starting to annoy herself with all these questions.

"For Aziraphale." Fred's thumb pointed behind him in the direction of the bathroom. "The...oh. You mean...was this unplanned?" Concern laced his tone. He unplugged his wrist from the computer, the wire sliding back inside the panel in his arm.

Was that fucking alarm on this wanker's face? "Only unplanned thing in my life is you taking up so much space," Crowley muttered.

"Wait, wait. You do know. Right? She must have told _you_."

 _Rip that wire from his wrist and wrap it around his throat and make him explain,_ Hell suggested. _This is tedious._ For once, Crowley was inclined to agree. She cleared her throat, lifted the cup to her lips, and let the bitter espresso coat her tongue.

"The pregnancy." Fred whispered the word as if it might be taboo.

Coffee spewed from Crowley's mouth. She threw her head back, her laughter lit deep in her belly and erupting to fill the room. Absolutely bonkers, the human race. The horror coating Fred's face caused her feet to wiggle in glee. _Bless. Oh bless_. "Aziraphale's not pregnant," Crowley choked out. "She can't get pregnant."

"Think you better talk to your wife, mate."

Crowley's stomach felt weak as she wiped the tears from her eyes. She hadn't laughed like that in so long. Wherever did they get these ideas? "Never fear, I think we're safe."

"Not many flus keep you sick for weeks at a time," Fred pointed out, the distress clear from his furrowed brow. "Throwing up at such specific hours? This isn't a common cold."

Crowley's laughter died away. Within her, Hell was unusually silent. "Weeks?" she asked, uneasiness coiling in her stomach. "Sick?"

Fred stood and slipped his coat on. "Listen, these things happen. If you need a recommendation to, you know, take care of it, I know some people. Unplanned without a permit is bad, especially with London's population rules. Seriously." He stooped, looked as if he might put a hand on Crowley's shoulder and thought better of it. "I'm so sorry."

She'd never seen Fred depart the bookshop so fast before. In the leftover silence, she thought of her morning desire for banishment. Her tongue flickered out, tasting Fred's apology lingering in the air. Pity. He felt pity for her. For her marriage.

Behind the bathroom door, the sound of a quiet heave and gag reached Crowley's ears. Chills swept down her spine, filling her with a brand of low-key dread similar to the one felt when she first got a whiff of the Antichrist. Angels couldn't have children. Demons couldn't, either. All that time in Heaven and Hell and there'd never been a peep from either side about new life, about crying winged progeny or whining fire-breathing youths. Satan's sake, imagine Dagon bearing children. Fuck, imagine Michael.

Her dread tightened into something bordering on panic as the long timeline of human history played out in her mind. There _had_ been that pesky Nephilim business once upon a time, and that had been as unexpected as her wife hiding in a bathroom to throw up.

Shit.

Crowley stood and approached the bathroom like it might attack her. She tapped gently on the door. The toilet—such an outdated thing—flushed. A surge of shame rolled through her. Weeks? Had Aziraphale been quietly ill for weeks? And there Crowley was, fussing about pilfered tea, and attention, and sigils to keep anything dangerous away when, perhaps, that danger had been festering inside their home this whole time. She was a shoddy wife. She shouldn't be married. She shouldn't even have an angel.

"Aziraphale?" She tapped on the door again when her first entreaty went unanswered. "Love, I'm coming in."

A demonic break-and-enter miracle took care of the lock. The door creaked open to reveal Aziraphale couched between the toilet and textured wallpaper, a hand wiping her mouth. The pungent smell of bile and depleted divinity hit Crowley's nostrils. Inside her, Hell rolled awake with an overwhelming mixture of alarm and sharpened interest.

 _Weakened_ , Hell whispered. _My golden-bright is weakened. I need to care for her, but also fuck her, turn her over, cover her, let the occult overwhelm her and then lick her better, lick her clean._

Crowley clung to the doorway until the urge diminished, and then studied the angel. The circles under Aziraphale's eyes had darkened, the short waves tucked behind her ears lackluster. Golden spots dotted her cheeks like celestial freckles, but it was as if her wan skin had shrunk and pulled back, leaving her stretched inside her mortal body. Crowley's fingers itched to take stock of Aziraphale: strip her down and check every angelic cell of her being, even delve past the corporeal form to inspect the ethereal nature. Instead, Crowley slipped into the room, crouching down opposite the angel.

“I'm sorry, my dear," Aziraphale said with a lopsided smile. "Feeling a little under the weather.”

“Under the weather?" Crowley hated how high her voice sounded. "When have you ever been sick? When have _we_ ever been sick?”

Aziraphale shifted, looking uncomfortable. “I tried to miracle it away, but the feeling persisted.”

“Miracle resistant?” Crowley's uneasiness bloomed into terror, and holy Heaven, what if that stupid vapid Fred was right? She began mentally counting all the times she'd made that particular male effort over the past few months, eager to please when Aziraphale had asked, and lost count. A plague on her libido, a pox on her wants. "Fred thinks you're pregnant," she blurted out.

The look Aziraphale gave her—there could've been holy water in that glare. "Do be serious, Crowley."

"I am! You tell me what else it could be." Crowley waved her hands uselessly. "There aren't any doctors specializing in celestial illness to tell us otherwise. Remember, no one thought, hey, might not be a good idea for angels to snog humans, going to produce huge monster babies if you keep going down that road. God didn't give us the birds and the bees talk, Aziraphale, She didn't give us a manual for angelic copulation." A thought struck her and her fingers tore into her bun, pulling at her curls. "Do angels have sex like us? I mean, are Gabriel and Michael shagging each other?"

"For pity's sake, Crowley—"

"And we can't even ask them," Crowley continued, breathless. She wished her thoughts would stop hijacking her mouth. She wished she could stay quiet. "They won't even respond unless it's to smite us. Think how long it took human doctors to figure out bloodletting was bad. What if an angelic reproductive cycle is just really bloody long and we didn't even know about it and now we'll be parents." She clapped a hand over her mouth. Her mind presented her with an image of a red-haired blue-eyed angel boy clambering into her lap, much like Warlock had so long ago, eager for a nighttime tale of terror. Imagine a girl with golden locks and metallic yellow slit eyes following Crowley down the sidewalk, her miniature dressed in black, as Crowley taught her daughter to put lots of glue on the coins so that they would properly stick to the pavement.

“Lord help me if there is a smaller version of you running around. I won't survive it." Aziraphale adjusted against the gold and navy wallpaper, her face twisting in a grimace. Her hand hovered over the toilet, as if considering bending over it again. She fixed Crowley with a prim look. "Dearest, you look like you're in a panic. Don't imagine it so well that it comes true."

"I wouldn't. I'm not. I'm just considering."

"You can stop time. You kept the Bentley from melting with mere willpower. I will never underestimate what that gorgeous imagination of yours can do."

Crowley's hands covered her eyes and she rocked just a touch, a distressed hiss slipping from her lips. _Banishment._ That was the word of the day. Banish the bright blue-eyed Aziraphale-mimic cooing as he fed the ducks at St. James, his ember-red curls waving in the wind, speaking to the creatures of the Earth in tongues. Slay the grinning demon-toddler reprimanding her first potted succulent, blonde curls piled on top of her head, brimming with an aura made of both Aziraphale's sweetness and Crowley's heart. Satan's sake, don't imagine it. _Stop it._

"Don't fret, dearest," Aziraphale said, her voice soft with apology. "I didn't mean it in a negative way. Of course I'd be honored to have a family with you."

"What if it's cancer." The thought slid under Crowley's ribs like a twisting blade. Loss clutched her heart, making her words thick, shattering her illusions of _eternity_ and _endless_ and _infinity_ with her angel. "Celestial cancer, Aziraphale."

"Darling—"

"Awful thing, cancer. Comes from mutated cells, I think. The DNA codes all wrong. Maybe your ATCGs aren't lining up properly. We should see a doctor. A human doctor. Angels went ahead and created galaxies, but somehow a holy clinic slipped their minds."

Not like Hell was any better—and they had warts and pustules and sores galore. Left it all untreated, the complete idiots. God’s first beings truly were daft.

"Like human doctors would be able to fix something I can't do myself," Aziraphale scoffed and balanced precariously against the wall as she tried to stand. Her eyes snapped shut and she let out a slow breath. Her fingers hooked her hair behind her ear. "I feel like I've been on a rollercoaster. Help me to my chair, dear."

"We're going to have a lay down," Crowley hissed as she leapt to her feet, winding her arm around her Aziraphale. She must be strong like an oak tree, steadfast like a pillar of Heaven, sturdy like the caves of the Pit. Together, they left the bathroom.

"Nonsense. I have tasks to complete."

_"Aziraphale."_

"Unhand me, villain. Remind me how are the ATCGs supposed to line up," Aziraphale said as Crowley settled her into the chair in front of the hologram screen. The text began to flow downwards in a flood of blue code. The golden freckles along Aziraphale's face pulsed once and then began to dim.

"A's bind to T's, C's bind to G's," Crowley answered, wrapping a blanket around the angel's legs and tucking in the sides. A new kind of hurt festered inside her. How hard would it be for Aziraphale to submit to a tiny bit of demonic fussing?

 _Golden-bright doesn't know what's good for her_ , Hell growled.

"Oh well done," Aziraphale said, much like she'd delivered _played for suckers_ during the War. "Even on a molecular level, you've convinced the angels to bind to temptation. A to T, darling. You clever thing."

"That's not even funny, angel," Crowley spluttered. "That's absolutely terrible."

"I like it," Aziraphale said with a shrug and picked up her empty teacup. The cup rattled in the saucer. She set the china back on the table, clasping her shaking hands together on top of the soft knit blanket. "It will pass," Aziraphale commanded, more to herself than Crowley. "It always does."

“Why didn’t you tell me?" The hurt manifested into tears and Crowley propped her hands on her hips, dug her claws in until she felt her bones ache. "You're supposed to tell me everything, Aziraphale. I didn't even know. What if I never knew? What if..."

"I'm sorry." Aziraphale had the decency to look upset. "But you do tend to overreact sometimes. You might make us move to Greenland."

“ _Greenland_ ,” Crowley spat. “I’m taking us to Mars. It's warm that close to the sun.”

Aziraphale smiled, her eyes sweeping back to the screen. Crowley huffed, felt the self-induced pain re-center her. Whatever was so bloody important about this text? Why wouldn't she let Crowley tuck her into bed, let her coddle and fuss? Crowley took a step forward to rip the cords out of the wall, smash the screen to pieces of glittering plastic and glass, when she actually paused and looked at the rolling blue symbols. Her eyes narrowed. "Angel, this script—"

But Aziraphale had gone rigid in her chair, her arm sweeping the teacup off the table to shatter on the floor. Her back arched like taut bowstring, blue eyes rolling up to expose the whites, and Crowley's angel-wife crashed to the floor.


	3. Blue Code

_ Is she Falling _ ? Hell asked.

"I don't know, I don't know," Crowley cried, the memory of brimstone coating her mouth, the sulfur peeling her skin off, the cracking of her legs and arms as an animalistic form replaced her divinity.  _ Don't darken her, _ Crowley pleaded and repeated prayers that scorched her tongue.  _ Don't take her from me. _

The scent of blood lingered in the air. Her knees ached from when she'd dropped to the hard floor, her hands hovering over the angel, and there was nothing she could do. Aziraphale seized, the muscles in her neck standing out like knotted rope. Her straining, arched back. Her rigid, unfurled wings. Fingers curved into claws. Each tiny, punched-out breath left holes in Crowley's soul.  _ You made her Fall. _

A black hole, that thought. A consuming mouth shredding everything it sucked inside. She refused to look at it, but now it demanded her attention— _ your love did this to her. _

"Aziraphale, angel, please stop. Darling,  _ please, _ I'll do anything, please—" Her magic sputtered over the angel, curling like smoke from a snuffed-out candle. Useless occult miracles. Useless demon. The blue code from the screen illuminated them both, casting Aziraphale's wrenched form in a pulsating electric light. 

_ Please don't let her wings darken.  _ Hand on Aziraphale's shoulder, Crowley rolled the angel gently to her side. A sob wrenched from Crowley as she felt Aziraphale's bones grind together, the crunch of paralyzed nerves keeping the angel suspended in agony. Divinity leaked from her like a sieve. The freckles sputtered like dying embers. Crowley remembered something like this, finding her angel shell-shocked on the battlefield during the Great Wars, spread too thin from performing one too many miracles, her blue eyes blank and dazed.

This was similar, but different. Faster. Like bleeding out.

"I'm sorry," Crowley gasped. "I'm so sorry, but it will be alright, angel, please, please stop, Somebody's sake, please—" She didn't know what to do. Whenever she used her magic, Aziraphale seemed to get worse. She prayed and then she blasphemed. She begged.

_ Take me, instead. I'll leave her and I won't come back, if that's what it takes. I swear on Your name. _

Finally, one final spasm ended with an agonized whimper, and Aziraphale grew still. Golden-red ichor coated her teeth, slipping between her lips. Crowley immediately miracled them upstairs, laying the angel out on their bed.

Aziraphale's hair spread like a halo around her. Shaking, Crowley ran her fingers through those loose fly-away curls, tucked the waves smooth against her cheeks and behind her ears. Back on her knees now, her ear flat to the angel's chest, listening for a thudding heartbeat. Nothing. All these human tells didn’t have stock here—there was no heartbeat to guide by, no breath to keep as a reminder of life, only the pulsing erratic thrum of Aziraphale's aura, her essence shimmering below the suit of skin. No warmth, no light, just a cold body.

"Don't take her from me," Crowley pleaded to the empty room. Hell growled in agreement.  _ "Don't you dare." _

***

When Crowley finally slunk downstairs, the day had faded from morning to purple twilight. Streaks of diminishing light filtered through the shop windows. Crowley stood in one of the rays, studying the fine dust motes floating in the sunbeam, the silence seeping into her, and closed her eyes. A rare, fine day in London has passed. She would’ve taken Aziraphale for a stroll along St. James’ dusty bank and reminisced on the ducks that once lived there. She would’ve kissed Aziraphale soundly in front of the renovated Globe. She would’ve indulgently pouted as Aziraphale complained about the lack of fine cuisine in this age of vitamin capsules and wilting crops.

Instead, the angel remained motionless under slate gray sheets. Crowley kept vigil beside her, silently watching for any change, terrified of the stillness. The angel disliked sleeping, despised unconsciousness. The few times Crowley had convinced her to try it, Aziraphale had jolted awake from nightmares, tucking into Crowley's side, face buried in Crowley's neck. Crowley would stroke her pale gold head and murmur questions, but Aziraphale refused to explain.

_ What do the dreams mean? Aziraphale had asked once. And then in a small voice: How can you stand it? _

_ They don't mean anything, angel. They're just thoughts, snippets, ideas. I barely have any. Tell me yours. _

_ I dreamt of a prophecy, Aziraphale whispered, fingers clutching and desperate. I saw the past. _

_ What the Heaven does that mean— _

_ Hurry. Kiss me. Quickly. _

Did nightmares torment Aziraphale now? Was her angel stuck, suspended in a REM cycle with no release? Crowley wished she'd pressed for answers on those hungry nights, but when Aziraphale decided to avoid conversation by turning Crowley into a mewling mess with her tongue, well. She'd said it before. A plague on her libido, a pox on her wants.

The bookshop’s front door eased open and Crowley snarled as an elderly woman poked her head in. "Hello? The open sign is still turned, finally wondered if I could get hands on that folio—"

"Closed," Crowley yelled. "Closed, closed _ , closed. _ " The door slammed on the woman's face, the sign flipped. 

"Well I've  _ never," _ the woman shouted back, her voice muffled behind the glass. Crowley bared her fangs, her long tongue unraveling, as the shades drew down over the spurned customer’s open mouth of shock.

Damn Aziraphale's erratic hours—give the humans an inch and they'd take a mile—but the encounter had rattled Crowley out of her terror, a reptilian inkling seeping into her mind as she stalked over to the now blank hologram screen.

Droplets of golden blood marred the floor where Aziraphale had fallen. The teacup lay shattered in white fragments. Crowley crushed the porcelain with her bare foot, glaring at the screen and feeling familiar Hell-fury burn inside her. Someone—something—had attacked her angel and, while Aziraphale was a pure unsullied creature, Crowley was a being of vengeance. This would not stand.

The screen blinked on suddenly and threw up the text—symbols and hieroglyphs glowing white-blue—and began to scroll downwards on its own.

"Think you're clever," Crowley snapped, her claws grabbing the toppled chair and throwing it against a bookcase. "Think you're so smart." Her hands slammed on the table, making the keyboard light up. The text scrolled faster and Crowley’s eyes traced and tracked, the words dancing before her vision. "Back to the beginning, now," she ordered, voice low and thrumming with occult power. "I want to read you top to bottom." The text stuttered to a halt and spun back in reverse until it lurched to a stop at the beginning.

Aziraphale might not have been able to decipher this language, but Crowley could.

_ I'm sorry, angel. I should've paid more attention. _

"Nasty piece," she muttered as she read. The heavy weight of blasphemy settled in her veins, the tingling magic euphoric like a nicotine rush. Within her, Hell crooned and yearned toward the text like a flower toward the sun. "Where did you come from, I wonder."

Twilight receded into the deep folds of midnight. When Crowley reached the end of the text, it scrolled right back to the beginning, eager to be read again. She propped Aziraphale's glasses on her nose and plugged into cyberspace, methodically tracing the text's journey online. Even there in the ether, the panting want of perdition and the destruction of the inferno called to her damned soul. Her cyber-miracles struck through human fantasy playgrounds to enthusiastic chat groups to the transaction of credits flowing between accounts. She found the first trace of the text and incinerated it. She followed electric threads from one end of space to another, breaking into Fred's personal accounts and cremating the email between him and Aziraphale linking the text.

Only then, did she download the file to her phone, before scrubbing the text from Aziraphale's computer. Unplugging from the net, she placed her phone carefully on the table and studied the way the light refracted off the black mirror. "Who let you escape the Pit?" she purred. Her hands clenched, her lacquered nails cutting into her palms, as she remembered returning to their stone cottage so many years ago after a lovely day at the beach.

***

_ Aziraphale, drunk on sun, ocean salt, and wine. A straw hat slung on his head, but his cheeks were somehow rosy with sunburn. A paperback romance tucked under his arm. Crowley relaxed, still new to the sensation of being settled, but delighting in it. Hand in hand. Crowley announcing he'd make breakfast for dinner. They pushed inside their cottage, and Crowley's arm shot out, nearly clotheslining Aziraphale, as a hallowed reek overwhelmed him. There, propped on the mantle of their fireplace, lay a missive: the paper dirty from passing through endless hands, approval stamps of heaven littering the front, and the angel's name written in glimmering ink. The letter had traveled far to reach them. _

_ Panic strummed the struts of Crowley's heart. "Don't touch it," he said. _

_ Aziraphale's mouth downturned as he plucked the missive from its resting place and cracked open the wax seal. Stardust coated his hands, absorbing into his skin. _

_ "What does it say?" Crowley asked as an ache uncurled within him. The stardust gave the angel a boost of holiness that made him glow. The umbrella and beach bag slipped from Crowley's fingers and landed on the floor with a thump. It had been more than fifty years since the Apocalypse-That-Wasn't with no contact from either side. Nothing but endless days as they'd shifted from friends to lovers to partners. _

_ Aziraphale's ocean-bright eyes scanned the paper. "It's a return request, kindly asking for my presence at a department meeting for reassignment purposes. What pleasant language they've used, even after they tried to execute me." _

_ "You're not going," Crowley stated, low and dangerous. Breath congealed in his lungs. A familiar uneasiness chased away the tranquility of the day, offering gifts of 'I don't even like you' and 'We're not friends' for his immediate contemplation. This thing they had, it had to be more than a fling, more than a one-shot romance for the immortal. _

_ It had been a long time since Hell breathed fire into his thoughts, but the twisted divinity of his being screamed: We've never been enough. Crowley took a shuddering breath and studied the bookshelves, the herbs on the sill, the couch perfect for a duo, his records chaotically stacked next to his turntable. Remember this, for it will be ruined soon when he leaves you. _

_ The missive crumpled in Aziraphale's hand. "No, I don't think I will." A small flame erupted from the angel's fingers, devouring the sanctified paper to ash. _

_ Relief, then. Crowley felt his knees almost give out. He wrapped his arms around Aziraphale, buried his nose in the crook of Aziaphale's neck, and tried to soothe the sorrow ringing through him. Like a church bell—find the right trigger and the trauma would reverberate forever. The angel had chosen the demon, he whispered to himself. Aziraphale chose him. _

_ "I love you," Aziraphale whispered, his hand cupping the line of Crowley's jaw. "Desperately." _

_ "Don't know.” Crowley's voice thickened. Damn this need—this want. This piece of him scraped raw without a balm to cool. "Maybe you...you want to go back to Heaven. Maybe you find yourself fond of Julie Andrews, now. Maybe I played Queen a bit too loud this morning." _

_ "Ah yes, Beethoven's 'Somebody To Love.' What an unrepresented classic." Aziraphale tilted Crowley's face to ensure he met those ancient eyes, and Crowley remembered Egyptians perfecting the color with dye, how he'd tried to craft the perfect shade to mimic the angel's eyes. Hyacinth-rich. Sapphire-clear. "I'll always hate Sound of Music, darling." _

_ A laugh bubbled on Crowley's lips, but it was what he needed. The bell eased into silence, filling him with the certainty of them. "We should take a trip," Crowley said. _

_ "A trip?" Aziraphale pulled back. _

_ Crowley licked his lips, a sudden wash of determination filling him. "If they found us here, then we've been here too long. I don't want to be here—unprepared—for their next move." _

_ Aziraphale went still, just a touch behind Crowley in realizing everything they would have to leave behind. His lips parted, desperate to speak and yet somehow unable to. Change was difficult for the angel, Crowley knew. _

_ "I dreamt of Greece," Aziraphale answered oddly, his fingers brushing down the open collar of Crowley's shirt. Tears coated his lashes. "Those stark white buildings. That blue water." _

_ "Sounds perfect, angel." Crowley wrapped him back into his arms and felt the vibration of Aziraphale's shoulders as the angel wept for what they had, what they would lose, and what they would keep. _

_ Do you know what an event horizon is? Crowley thought, arms tightening. It's a membrane, a threshold. The edge of a black hole. A point of no return. If they took you from me, even for a departmental picnic, I'd swallow them whole. They wouldn't even know they'd crossed that boundary until I devoured their light. Because light can't survive in a black hole. It bends. It rips. Angel, it fucking shreds. _

_ *** _

They'd evaded Above and Below for a couple of centuries, but Crowley had lapsed, the mortar of her brick walls pitted with complacency. The reminder had been brutal, but crucial. Their enemies, while overall slow on the uptake, were getting smarter with time.

She went back upstairs. Aziraphale remained unmoved. She loosened her power, letting Hell slither over the angel. Heartbeat and breath meant nothing now. This time, Crowley knew what to look for.

Scorch marks raked down Aziraphale's ethereal mind. Desecration branded her essence, marring her with cauterized and reopened wounds, creating fresh scars. Crowley recalled this kind of pain: earned from her waltz down the aisle of a church to save the wayward principality. The consecrated ground blistered the soft pads of her feet through her shoes. And Aziraphale’s face...Satan below, the angel could be so bloody  _ guileless _ in the face of mankind's machinations.

She leaned over, laid a careful kiss on Aziraphale's forehead, and reeled her power back. The occult tendrils wanted stay, to protect, wished to be woven into chainmail over her frail wife.  _ No, _ Crowley cooed,  _ but soon. _

Then, she changed into her best black suit, her favorite dark jeans, laced up her boots, tied a velvet necklace around her long throat. The ends—twisting golden serpents—bumped her collarbones. Hair braided tight in a long plait for the journey ahead. Snapping her fingers, the marriage certificate from downstairs appeared in her hands.

She pulled out a suitcase and started packing items that couldn't be replaced: a lock of Crowley's red hair that she'd given Aziraphale at a jousting tournament when Crowley had been sent to foment evil as a lady-in-waiting; the yellowed paper of their marriage certificate folded carefully next to a bundle of letters between the angel and Emily Dickinson; the first hand-written draft of  _ Frankenstein _ . Crowley should've known then that the angel had a type. She was folding Aziraphale's favorite beige sweater—it would remind her wife of London in the times to come—when she heard stirrings from the bed behind her. Crowley whipped around and gripped the tall bedposts near the angel's feet, leaving scratches deep in the wood. 

Aziraphale whimpered, tossing her head in distress, her eyelids fluttering. Crowley took a deep breath when Aziraphale's eyes blinked fully open and focused on her. "Oh," Aziraphale whispered in a hoarse voice. "What happened?"

Crowley burst into tears. It was the bookstore burning all over again: the overwhelming anxiety, the fresh grave of depression, and finally disbelief in seeing the apparition-Aziraphale after she thought all had been lost. "The text," she sobbed, desperate to confess. "That text you and Fred were studying. Angel, it was a desecrated codex. Bibles and gospels and every holy word turned inside out and eviscerated. We used to do it in the early days of Hell, rip apart anything She wrote, corrupt anything created in Her name. Defile it completely."

Aziraphale's eyes widened. She propped up on her elbows, tossing the blankets off of her. "I've never heard of such a thing."

"Because they're all supposed to be in  _ Hell _ ." Crowley wiped her eyes, felt her teeth elongate and nick her tongue. "Heaven sent a missive, remember? Well, Hell does things a little differently. For me, walking on consecrated ground stung, but this codex burned your divinity when you read it. Angel, it scorched your fucking mind.” Crowley covered her face with her hands, felt scales ripple into existence down her neck.

The bed creaked and shifted. Soft hands pulled at Crowley's, whispered over her skin. "Don't touch me," she demanded, wrenching away. "Don't, angel. I need a moment."

The hands disappeared, but their hovering presence remained. Hell slunk into a tight coil, venom heavy in her fangs, ready to strike. "We have to leave," Crowley choked out and lowered her hands. "We have to run."

"I don't want to run," Aziraphale said. Her face was a soft dusk: retreating purple circles underneath morning glory eyes, soft curls like clouds outlined in blinding gold. Her divinity still dim and fading behind the horizon. "This is our home. _ London is our home.  _ I don't want to run every time Heaven or Hell threatens us."

_ Home? Don't talk to me about home when you've never been without one. Home is you, angel. I'd welcome destitution as long as you were beside me.  _ "We are leaving, Aziraphale. Don't make me say it again."

"My dear, we've fled every time—"

Crowley shook her head. Hell widened, such a hungry mouth, and she fed it by pacing, by knocking trinkets off the shelves, shoving books onto the floor, hating the way Aziraphale folded her hands together and watched Crowley take the room apart.

_ Let's find a mountain, _ Hell suggested.  _ We'll wrap a leash around the angel, something small and light that she'll barely notice. We'll blindfold this holy falcon, settle her in a nest high in the air so she can stretch her wings, her flying weight carefully calculated when we set her tethers free, but we'll always always always know where she is. _

"You can't bargain our fate with faith.  _ Hang faith _ ," Crowley snarled. "It's guaranteed that both sides will come for us. There’s no room for hope, Aziraphale. We have to be smart, tactical. Maybe—maybe we should separate, create a couple rendezvous points, lead them astray. Hell can sense me the most because I’m part of it." It hurt to say. She immediately regretted it. But it might keep Aziraphale safe, being away from anything pockmarked with the Pit. Igneous rock, Crowley was. Magma-born, soot-blackened.

Aziraphale’s lips pursed into a line and she tilted her chin up. An uncanny calm radiated from her. Why was it that the further Crowley frayed, the more resolute Aziraphale became?

"You think I'm scared of Hell?" Aziraphale asked, stepping closer, her fingers stroking the black iridescent scales running down Crowley's chest until the demon stilled. "You think I'm scared of you and  _ your _ Hell? I love every part of you—the abyss and the divine. To separate based on who we are and who’s coming after us isn’t the answer."

"I don't feel safe here anymore.” The words wrenched out of Crowley. “I don't want to split, but I want us safe. More than anything."

Aziraphale considered her words, her teeth digging into her lower lip, her fingers stroking along the jut of Crowley's jaw. Silence stretched. The Hell inside Crowley rumbled like Vesuvius: _ close the space between them. _

“I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry,” Crowley said, feeling that itch like from _ before, _ when a vague suggestion and follow up question resulted in her sky-diving into a pool of sulfur. Cast out.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Aziraphale thumbed the new scales along Cowley’s temple. "Did you pack my necklace, at least?"

"Next to Shelley," Crowley ground out.

"Excellent," Aziraphale murmured, her body now a line of heat against Crowley. "I love that gift, a gift Hell brought me. That you brought me."

Hell cooed, pleased, its embers burning bright. Crowley swallowed hard, felt dizzy with a mishmash of images: of Aziraphale with long golden curls and her head thrown back in ecstasy, of Aziraphale with short-cut hair, her head thrown back in agony.

"And I suppose you are more sensible than I,” Aziraphale admitted. “Accepting change will never be my cup of tea. But, darling, really. Mars simply doesn't have the culture I'm accustomed to."

"Heaven's sake, angel." An astounded chuckle escaped her and she ran her hands up and down Aziraphale’s arms. Leave it to her wife to question the lifestyle possibilities of the stars when they faced impending elimination from the Pit.

"You must know I love you,” Aziraphale whispered, the divine shine dampening once more, draining out of her like a steady stream. “All of you. Even this part that you try and hide from me.” She laid a chaste kiss on Crowley’s mouth. “We’ll go.”

“About time you listen to reason. It’s only taken years and years and years...”

“Villain,” Aziraphale said fondly as the strength emptied from her and she slumped against Crowley, clutching her leg as if in pain. Crowley helped Aziraphale limp back to the bed and eased her under the blankets. Plumping the pillows, Crowley wished angelic patches existed so she could cover up the holes the desecrated codex had created inside the angel.

“I'm tired, love, come to bed with me?” Aziraphale asked, holding out her arms. “We can leave in the morning. I promise."

Crowley resisted crumbling. "I should keep packing."

"Darling, I hurt and want you near me."

Crowley ducked her head, full of indecision, but finally slipped fully into Aziraphale’s arms. Head resting on Aziraphale's chest, attuned to that familiar heart-drum, Crowley felt her internal stitching pull and part. She wrapped her arms tight around Aziraphale's waist and tried to stop a new flood of tears from overwhelming her.  _ This love I have for you is dangerous. Tender and savage. _

Aziraphale hummed. A quiet hymn in Old English filled the room.

Crowley stifled a weepy laugh. The song took her back to when she'd washed ashore in a Viking longboat only to discover a new  _ völva _ had come to the village. A seer with woven gold upon her head, eyes darkened with kohl and soot, and a gender-approved switch from Heaven. How Crowley had given her the once-over before Aziraphale asked to borrow Crowley's bone runes to pass along her Heavenly message of peace and prosperity. To end raiding and bloodshed.

"Those runes originally started off as a game," Aziraphale accused quietly, her thoughts aligned with Crowley’s.

"So did _ tarocchi _ ," Crowley responded, nuzzling closer, feeling grounded. Secure.

"You just _ had _ to make the cards spooky. The hanged man, honestly, who thinks of that?"

"I made it _ popular _ , angel. Tarot wouldn't have become fashionable, otherwise."

“Tarot wouldn’t have become a thing in the first place, if it wasn’t for your meddling,” Aziraphale whispered, her breathing quickly becoming soft and steady as exhaustion claimed her.

_ This would be easier if I were a knight, _ Crowley mused _. No one would think it strange if I pledged my fealty to you. I'd give you my life and soul for your name and honor, my queen. Don't you know that? All I'd do for you? _

She mouthed words against Aziraphale's skin, a wish as ancient as her bones that she’d whispered to the cold nights of early history. A desire built after the mysterious prophetess had vanished, when Crowley remained behind clutching her broadsword, and her breath blew white puffs into the air. Even then she’d dreamed of this—her and Aziraphale, together as one.

_ Bright as Gold they called her _

_ wherever she visited, _

_ a seeress, far-sighted, _

_ she conjured with wands, _

_ in magic she was versed, _

_ in magic she was deft, _

_ always she was cherished _

_ by the evil women. _


	4. Devouring Serpents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter artwork by @Songbird-Of-Eden.

The sound of something shattering broke through the dark quiet of Crowley's sleep. She jerked upright and out of Aziraphale's arms. Aziraphale rolled into her, murmuring a question. A rainy dawn filtered through the windows—they had slept throughout the night. The full suitcase sat propped open and waiting at the foot of the bed. Crowley tightened her hand on Aziraphale's hip—tense, coiled, and _ listening. _

It came again. Glass shattering.

Crowley surged to her feet, hovering near the doorway, and peered down the darkened stairs into the shop. Aziraphale propped up on her elbow, rubbing her lilac-bruised eyes, golden brows furrowed in silent question. Crowley held her hand out— _ stay there, angel _ —and Aziraphale fixed her with a look— _ unlikely, my dear _ .

Another crash, only this time it sounded like a bookshelf being toppled over. Aziraphale threw off the covers and limped to their dresser, fumbling through their clothes to pull out a small dagger engraved with symbols.

"What the fuck is that?" Crowley demanded in a low hiss. It didn’t smell particularly divine, moreso used and blessed with old blood. "Has that been there the whole time?"

"A soldier is always prepared," Aziraphale whispered with a crooked smile, clutching the hilt. Her other hand dug into the muscles of her thigh. "I'm still incredibly weak and yet any hooligans robbing me blind will be met with severe opposition."

Sometimes Crowley was  _ flummoxed _ about how she ended up in this life where her wife, the guardian of the Eastern Gate, pulled holy daggers out of their underwear drawer. "You're going to stick  _ hooligans _ with that?"

"To defend my books? And you? Without hesitation."

"Angel, you've been keeping weapons that could harm _ me _ in our own home."

"You barely use the drawer as it is, darling. Those lace undergarments you prefer fit neatly in the opposite corner. You haven't noticed in three centuries, why is it a problem now?"

"Unbelievable." Crowley turned back to the door, felt Aziraphale sidle up close behind her and grip her suit jacket tight. Together, they crept downstairs into the shop. The clicking whir of mechanics became louder as they rounded out of the back room and eased into the front.

Two modified humans—one male, one female—cleared a path by shoving bookshelves out of their way, sending paper floating into the air like flower petals. Volumes clustered on the floor: spines bent, pages ripped, covers damaged.

Aziraphale spluttered in enraged shock. The male—his bulging muscles pockmarked with metallic nodes—looked up, his mouth curving in a feral grin. The small glass circles that had replaced his eyes glowed red. “We’ve been looking for you, lovelies,” he crooned.

Crowley raised her hand, fingers mid-snap, when the man leveled his patchwork metal arm at her. The wires crisscrossing his chest and plugging into the nodes began to rattle and buzz. Small puffs of air shot from his galvanized knuckles.

A dart embedded through the muscle of Crowley’s hand, scattering the gathered Hell-miracle she’d been about to cast. The spindle of the dart unraveled like the bloom of tentacles and burrowed around her fingers, slashing the delicate tendons, injecting something cold into her muscles. Her hand spasmed, fingers curling in. Her heart stuttered.  _ Paralyzed. _

"Angel, get back—"

With another puff of air, darts peppered her body, the glowing red tech snapping open and burrowing around her flesh. Stinging pain sprouted from Crowley's chest and neck, making her stagger back into Aziraphale. Shaking arms caught her from behind and yanked her down as another volley of darts whipped past them. So much for being Aziraphale's demonic shield.

Crowley twitched, her head tipped back against the angel’s shoulder. Aziraphale: fury baring her teeth, eyes narrowed and wild, burning hot-blue like the Seven Sisters. Crowley’s shaking hands reached up to trace that beloved jawline, the cupid bow lips. She could never craft anything so beautiful, could never harness the wrath of her principality into a burning mass of colliding elements. But she’d try. She knew she would. What a nebula she'd make.

Aziraphale’s weight disappeared as she laid Crowley gently on the ground and charged the modified man. Her dagger sliced through the wires crisscrossing his chest.

“Fucking bitch—” The modified man staggered back, the wire’s buzz intensifying into a rattle. Like the grinding gears of a car. The red code flickering along the screen on his forearm blinked in and out.

Sparks lit up the room. The scent of electrical burn floated over Crowley's tongue. Her fingers slipped together, grasping for Hell-power that would purge some of the paralytic from her system. A sudden swell of  _ holy _ swelled in the room like a wave and disappeared just as quickly.  _ Aziraphale grasping for power. _ Crowley’s recovered hands ripped at the expanded darts, her flesh clenched in their tiny pinchers, and threw the tentacle-flowers to the ground. This wasn't  _ hooligans. _ This was a planned attack _. _

_ Get up, get up, you worthless demon.  _ Even in the civil war of angels, she never fought on the battlefield, her words even then studded with silver and slip.  _ But she would unsheathe a sword now. _

Aziraphale’s blade slashed across the human’s stomach, cutting into the soft meat of him, but her leg buckled, sending her to her knees. The man backhanded her with inhuman force, and Aziraphale landed in a heap of books. The dagger skidded away from her grasp, lost amongst the tomes.

The paralytic siphoned from Crowley's body, purged like too much alcohol. Panic translated into static in her mind. She stumbled to numb feet. Aziraphale was just too far away, her angel tossed like a sack, and Heaven damn these humans—

"Do it now,  _ fucking hell _ ," the modified male roared to his companion. He grabbed a handful of Aziraphale’s short hair and flung her closer to the woman. Aziraphale's head cracked against the wood ledge of a toppled bookcase. Crowley choked on a scream.

The female human loomed over Aziraphale and flicked a switch on her chest. Her arm peeled back in panels, revealing a spout of some kind, and aimed it at the angel. Dust spewed from it, billowing in the air like stirred ash, coating the angel in a fine layer. As Aziraphale raised her hand to pull power from Heaven, she gasped, bent back in a sudden, strung agony. Seizing, as before.

"Don't you touch her," Crowley snarled, running for her fallen wife. Thick dust filled the bookshop, rendering Aziraphale into a shadowed silhouette. For a brief moment, terror of the past overwhelmed Crowley—only this wasn't fire, this wasn't smoke, this was...

Satan's sake— _ the rush _ . It filled Crowley like a drug, so intense she collapsed to her knees, flung her head back, and exulted.  _ Desecration. _ Another puff of air and she barely felt the darts penetrate her this time, not with all this evil overwhelming her like a live wire. Somehow, she’d fallen to her knees. Her mortal corporation jerked, flooded again with paralytic. Her demonic soul writhed with the glory of Hell. Close behind her, the slide of a well-oiled machine arose.  _ The modified male. _ She didn’t need to pull a miracle from Hell. She sucked it out of the air and threw it at the human, hearing with satisfaction the crunch as he slammed into the wall, of bricks collapsing as that wall fell.

The sound of coughing,  _ choking, _ broke the ecstasy. Through the grime, she could barely make out the angel: her hands balled into fists, pounding her chest. The hallowed throb of Aziraphale’s essence sputtered and dried up under the shroud of desecration.

Defilement gathered to the demon like colliding molecules, aimed to destroy the modified female threatening the angel. For a moment, Aziraphale met Crowley’s gaze. Tears of golden ichor ran down her cheeks. A bruise bloomed on her temple. Her mouth pursed tight and white with panic.

And still Crowley's  _ useless, feeble _ mortal form could not move.

"Keep her under, keep her under—"

Human commands. A whispered hush as more desecrated dust seeped into the bookshop. Crowley’s mind blurred—like being near black-out drunk, but  _ better _ . The modified woman grabbed Aziraphale, picking her up. The angel wrenched away, clawing at wires and hinges, but she was too weak. The divine wisp  _ evaporated. _

Corrupted euphoria filled Crowley's veins. Her eyes rolled up in the back of her head, but Hell roared at her.  _ Too much, too much. If you attack the modified-female with all this power, the golden-bright will be destroyed as well. _

_ They're taking my angel,  _ Crowley screamed.

_ Then let me in! _

Crowley surrendered her walls, lowered the drawbridge across the moat dividing her devilish nature, and felt the full power of the Abyss fill her with finality.

Her human shell sloughed off. Paralyzed limbs shrunk into her elongating body. Writhing as a huge serpent, her snake form burst through the bookshop’s ceiling. Brick, shingles, and London's downpour cascaded down into the shop. Her tail slashed, sending bookshelves toppling, ripping through the walls.

The humans were fleeing. The male human had climbed up out of the rubble and defended the retreating modified female, his mouth open wide and shouting commands Crowley couldn’t hear. Aziraphale hung useless over her shoulder. Darts bounced off Crowley’s scales.

Her jaw unhinged and she struck—fangs sinking deep into him, her throat undulating as she pumped him full of venom _.  _ He fought back with useless swings, screaming until his throat closed up. She dragged him into her huge maw, choking him down in one fell swoop.  _ The crunch of severed wires.  _ She reared back, surging to strike the other human.

The modified female aimed for her, sending small darts into her sensitive nose. Some flew true, puncturing her eyes. Howls of perdition issued from her throat as she flinched away, the world suddenly dark. Scents dragged across her tongue: the overwhelming taste of rain enhancing the rancid odor of pollution, the grit of ancient brick and crumbled mortar, the sizzle of neon lights.

She couldn't taste the human, couldn't taste the angel among the sense-pollution of London. Any trace of the human suddenly disappeared, lost in the storm. The angel’s divinity had faded long before. Slowly, the banal dust receded and finally cleansed of it, Crowley regained control, shackling the animalistic inferno and tucking her essence back into its human shell. Yanking occult power from the Pit, she waved her hands over her eyes, the dark disappearing as she restored her eyes.

_ Alone. _

The bookstore had been destroyed. Crowley sunk to her knees, forehead to the floorboards, and she screamed Aziraphale's name. Rage rattled her chest. Her angel was _ gone _ ,  _ taken. _ Her sacred soul snuffed out with desecrated ground and Crowley had no idea where she could be. If she’d been discorporated. This had to be the work of Hell. The Pit didn't send strongly worded letters like Heaven, no, Hell sent  _ operatives.  _ Humans, even—those that could bypass her warding.  _ Clever. _

Completely soaked to the bone, she dug the darts out of her face like plucking thorns from a rose. Congealed dust and brimstone blood mingled down her face and caught in her panting mouth, filling her with the taste of hate and soot. Her body heaved, and she choked out the crushed green shrapnel of a motherboard. A finger rooting under her gums revealed slender bent metal spokes.

She wouldn't mourn in a pub like before, wouldn't drink herself into oblivion. She wouldn't cry over memorabilia lost—not for the Shelley, not for the necklace. None of that  _ mattered  _ when Aziraphale was no longer by her side. Her hand clenched into a tight fist as she built an internal soul-fire with the kindling of revenge.

Shivering, she purged the last of the paralytic immobilizing her. To find Aziraphale, as much as she hated it, she needed help. A snap of her fingers summoned her phone, repaired the crushed glass with a snap. Scrolling through her contacts with a sigh, she punched in Fred’s name. He answered on the first ring.

"Antonia. Hi." Wavering uncertainty. After all, Crowley never contacted him directly. "What can I do for you?"

"We've been attacked," Crowley snarled. She didn't have time to play by mortal rules or keep up a pretense of secrecy. The ticking seconds had new meaning with Aziraphale in Hell’s grasp. She’d wipe his mind later. “Aziraphale's been taken. Fucking bookshop is destroyed."

"Someone made a move on your district?" His voice sounded faint, but steady.

Crowley paused, taken aback. Why did he sound so calm? The rainwater weighed her red tresses down across her face, lengthening the curls from her ruined braid into waves. The whir of drones filled the air, sent to catalogue the damage. “My district?”

"Must be a coup, right? Some kind of power play on Soho.” Fred's voice lowered. "You don't have to act stupid, AJ. You and Aziraphale...I know what you are."

"And what is that, exactly?"

Fred huffed in frustration. "I won't rat you out, alright? I'm not with the coppers, not a spy for the other district bosses. I'm clean. I can be trusted. Bring me into the fold. I can prove myself."

Crowley gagged, felt another piece of metal work its way up her throat. "You think I'm a mob boss? Me and Aziraphale?"

"AJ, c’mon. Who else has access to everything you do? Sugar? Tea? I'm not stupid. Since moving here, it’s plain that Soho is safe because of you two. The water is affordable and clean. People have roofs over their heads—you haven’t hiked up rent, you should see what people are forced to pay in Mayfair—drugs aren't running rampant, honestly, it's a miracle you haven't been moved on already."

Crowley held the phone away from her ear and tugged a glass eye, ragged with short wires on one end, out of her mouth.

"I've been trying to earn your trust for a long time," Fred continued, taking her silence as a negative sign. "It's why I came to London, really. Beyond the work, I mean. The government is too busy with trade wars, the corporations are only concerned with cheap real estate and developing exclusive spaces for the rich. It leaves the rest of us scrambling to make a living. Out of all the bosses in London, Soho is desirable. I want to be part of that—I want to help  _ you. _ You and Aziraphale have already shown me such kindness.”

"Consider this your first test, then." Crowley let the glass eye roll around in her hand.  _ Incredible humans. Mankind continued to astound her.  _ "I need holy water and I need it sealed. Lots of it. Not a drop can escape."

"Churches don't carry holy water anymore, there's not enough water for it to be allowed, period—" Fred spluttered.

"Then find a fucking priest and have him bless what’s in the gutters," Crowley said, holding her hand up and watching the rain patter into her palm. "I don't care how you get it, just get it, Fred. I'll wire you credits, donate to whatever church you think will help."

"Okay, okay, Christ. I understand."

“Then I need you here. The bookstore—”  _ Deep breath, serpent. _ “It’s in pieces. I need you to handle the cops, the press, the authorities, whoever is going to show up. I need you to explain away whatever they think happened. Can you do that?”

"I won't let you down, Antonia. I know you don't like me, but I'll prove myself to you. I will earn your trust." Fred paused, his voice softening with empathy. “We’ll find Aziraphale. She’s going to be okay.”

"Sure," Crowley said, choking on sudden despair. "One hour."

She hung up on him and coughed up a bundle of nodes. She opened her mouth, let the rain patter against her teeth, and decided that stories of avenging angels were nonsense. Avenging angels were nothing more than furious demons with nothing left to lose.


	5. Aziraphale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter artwork by @Papipoppy.

_ Tell me, darling. Tell me why I feel this way. _ __

_ If we are such stuff as dreams are made of, then why does the unsettled, the uncanny haunt me? More so, why am I drawn to it? If I am made of Her love than why do I dream of tangled red lines, veins spanning like tightropes, these struggling lifelines? _ __

_ Tell me why I dream of fear. Explain why I am frozen in its grasp, unable to change, pinned in a liminality between what was and what could be. Perhaps, the bedrock of Heaven is fear. If so, then I am a being of terror. _

_ And I am too terrified to ask. I am horrified to question. _

Aziraphale twisted awake. Dirt crunched beneath her. Light blinded her—beating like a high noon sun without the heat—crafting an ache of nerve pain that raced down her spine. She'd been stretched thin as if on a rack, this corporeal bundle a collapsed husk. Tongue thick in her mouth, a hot metal whisper floating in the back of her throat, and still memories pooled within her, seeking release like her ethereal spirit fighting hard to break from this frail frame. 

_ Remember the etymologist wall? Scarabs immobilized with straight silver pins. Butterflies taut and spread. So vulnerable. All encased behind glass. You’d been mischievous, my dear, you vanished the pane as I pointed to the curved horns of beetles. My finger grazed the preserved carapace. It crumbled under the pressure. _

_ I need you to hold me up. Dig me out of this. You taught me how to sleep. Now wake me up. _

“We need her awake for the procedure.”

“Principality Aziraphale, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, awaken. That is an order.”

Her eyes fluttered open. Next to her grinned a skull. Traces of dark soil smeared across the brow bone and darkened the spaces between the teeth. Her hands scraped through the dirt, dragged across femurs and the mottled nubs of stripped fingers, caught on this bed of dried marrow.

A dry sob slid from her lips. Her lungs wheezed inside her, a split apple withered and brown.  _ Desecrated ground. _ The rage radiating around her devoured her essence, made her gasp, her spine bend. Crowley had danced over the hot coals of consecrated ground, but this was different, this felt  _ starved. _ Felt  _ empty. _

“I’m told it hurts,” a strong voice said from above her. “Not that I would know from experience.”

Aziraphale focused on a familiar face, softened with femininity. Dark hair, cut short like Crowley's used to be, with crinkles at the corners of her purple eyes. Gabriel smiled down at Aziraphale. “Principality,” she said, her voice boisterous, joyous. As if she'd been dying to see her colleague after three centuries.

“Archangel.” Aziraphale murmured the greeting. Her hands curled into fists, gripping rocks that burned like embers and the desiccated cartilage that cut like whips. "What a pleasure."

“I took a page out of your book,” Gabriel said, tugging at the lapels on her gray suit jacket. “Decided to bypass all the paperwork for this special visit. Do you remember when you didn’t obtain approval? Back in, when was that? Sometime when humans were much more modest. You had to wear all those skirts, that corset tied so tight it kept you breathless. I remember because I had to come to Earth specifically to tell you how you’d fucked up.”

Aziraphale remembered. It was easier to slink into the courts as a wealthy widow to conduct both the miracle of fertility and the temptation of lust, especially on the impossible timeline Heaven had imposed. Crowley had caught her when she'd nearly fainted after Gabriel's visit and admonition— _ haven't seen this look in a while, angel. _ He always appeared out of nowhere when she was in need, his strong arm wrapped around her distorted waist. His slim fingers picking loose the ties with expert tugs, and she loved the whisper of rope through the loops, the sensation of being free—like her body was spreading its wings.

“Is that why Heaven sent you?” Disbelief colored Aziraphale's laugh. “Because I changed a hundred years ago without a stamp of approval? You want me to send in _ requests _ after trying to execute me?"

“Heaven didn’t send me.” Gabriel crouched down, hands loosely clasped. Her loafers squeaked against the tile floor. “This visit is something just for me. I hope you enjoyed the desecrated codex. I borrowed it from a friend.” Gabriel whistled and pointed at the ground. “But you know all about friends from below.”

If Gabriel was this close to her, then the desecrated ground must have an end. The bones and soil could only extend so far. Aziraphale’s teeth ground together. She lunged up with the strength of a miracle, throwing a fistful of desecration at the archangel.

The dust barely grazed Gabriel's fingers. Gabriel pulled a disgusted face and shifted back. "Innovative," she drawled. "Always keeping me on my toes. Isn't that how you described your adversary?"

Aziraphale writhed as the desecrated dirt gobbled up her power. Using a miracle had left an open hole inside defenses she didn't know existed and the evil wormed inside. The nerve pain increased, making her mouth open in a breathless scream.

“I figured the other archangels didn’t need to know about this conversation,” Gabriel continued. "It's not like you've been getting our missives, anyway. We sent one a long time ago requesting your presence, but then your location got gummed up in the system. That's when I decided to pull a  _ principality-move _ , avoid explicit approval for this gender swap and by the time the paperwork catches up with me, I’ll be back home ready to void it."

Aziraphale rolled over and began belly-crawling. Beyond her sat shelves of mechanical equipment, glass workstations, a warehouse abandoned but sterilized in the event it might be reopened. Aziraphale stretched, her fingers seeking the edge of the desecrated ground. Just there—the smooth slide of linoleum.

"What were you going to do when we _ did _ catch up to you?" Gabriel asked. "Switch back? Be male for another hundred years? Be both? Heavens, we'd be backed up with paperwork for eons."

"I haven't done anything wrong," Aziraphale whispered. Corruption began to grow roots inside the punctured topsoil of her body. Vines bore into the tender length of her mortal coil, wove a silverskin of evil over her organs.

“But you have.” Gabriel's glee faded. “You're a new kind of abomination. An angel that can survive hellfire. Who would’ve thought?"

Aziraphale looked up, still half-blinded with artificial light. Gabriel’s mouth downturned into a frown, something weary and antediluvian. “When did it happen?" the archangel asked. "This singe of your consecrated soul with a devil’s tongue? What did you become after you…accepted that gift?”

“I’m still an angel,” Aziraphale said.

“Yes,” Gabriel snarled. “The bones of serial killers, and clay soaked with massacres, this loam of sacrifices clearly drains you like it would any angel. But I saw it with my own eyes—hellfire didn't leave a trace on you. It burst from your mouth. Yet, here you are, full of Her grace. What makes you different? Why do you get to have so many transgressions when the rest of us don’t?”

Aziraphale’s fingers dug at the tile. She felt her nails bend and break.

“Tell me,” Gabriel commanded, “and I’ll remove you from the ground.”

"What have you done to yourself?" Aziraphale asked, blinking for further clarity. Node portals protruded from Gabriel's temples. Long slashes like gills under her jaw glowed with alternating gasps of teal and black.

"I knew you'd be difficult. Good thing I planned ahead and ensured you’d be...pliable for this next part." Gabriel ran a hand over her face. "I won't sully my celestial body with food or drink or pleasure, but I will do it for answers. I'll do it for this." Gabriel glanced away from Aziraphale and nodded into the industrial light. "Let's do it."

Two humans gripped Aziraphale under her armpits and dragged her back into the middle of the desecrated circle. Aziraphale kicked out weakly, a growl of denial ripping from her throat. Cold shackles locked around her wrists, latched with a heavy chain to a square cement block bolted into the floor. She wrenched to the side, testing its strength. Unmovable.

A human bent over her. His metal-paneled mouth bared as she thrashed, revealing teeth that shivered with alternating electric lights. He slid her head to the side, holding her down with a hand spanned across her throat and tight in her hair.

The other human crossed his arms, brows drawn, creating trench-deep lines across his forehead. “I’m not sure this is a good idea. The conditions aren’t ideal. She should be in a proper facility. Especially if we're linking consciousnesses. Either one of you could go catatonic.” He scratched his chin with a mechanical hand crafted from nimble steel and smoothed gears.

“You’re the best out there, aren’t you?” Gabriel demanded, standing up. She plugged a long wire into the nodule in her temple and tossed the other end to the human. “Didn’t I promise you endless currency, if you did it my way?”

The human bit his lip, eyes flickering between the two angels. “I want the other half now.”

Gabriel snapped her fingers. “Done.”

A phone dinged. The man pulled the mobile from his pocket, eyes widening as he skimmed the alert. The light from the screen disappeared as he slipped the phone away. He knelt beside Aziraphale and rolled out a line of tools. Aziraphale couldn't see them, but the light glinted off them like sunspots glimmering off water.

A drill appeared in his hands. He lined up the bit with Aziraphale’s temple, a node matching Gabriel’s balanced in his other hand. The drill whirred into her skull and the angel of the Lord screamed.


	6. Gabriel’s Inquiry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter artwork by @Songbird-Of-Eden.

**Module One**

**Query: demon, adversary, the Fallen, post-execution attempt, demonic gift, hellfire bond, vow, corruption, occult persuasion, ethereal resistance, ethereal fall**

**Seeking...seeking...seeking...**

**Acquired.**

Aziraphale studied the dark clouds, Noah-black, gathering against the horizon. The heartbeat of lighting thudded far in the distance, just past the jagged cliff face. His hand balanced on the doorframe, one foot on land, the other ready to delve into the metaphoric sea.

The slide of familiar, cautious footsteps from the shadows made him smile—something small and secret and soft. "Are you lurking, my dear?" he asked.

"Just watching." Crowley's voice had shifted since she’d changed, sliding into a melodious alto. A razor had buzzed up her nape and scalp, creating sharp straight lines back from her temples. The short mess on top stood on end, her sweeping curls stiff with product. Knobby knees showed through ripped jeans, a black silk button-down covered with a dark fitted jacket, and a hot lick of want curled in Aziraphale's stomach seeing the line of her collarbones.

Crowley was made of lines that Aziraphale lived for, he followed them wherever they went—the dip of her neck sending him in a freefall to her shoulders, the curved cage of her ribs dispatching him on a journey to her hips. After they left the South Downs, they'd bounced from Greece to Australia, even managed a stint in bloody Greenland, and somewhere between Marseilles and Ohio Aziraphale had come to their bed to find Crowley languid with curves. "What do we have here," Aziraphale had purred, his mouth finding her breast. She'd arched at his touch, pulled him closer, long legs wrapped around his waist—more lines that led from ankle to knee, knee to thigh.

Later, she confessed she'd intercepted a second Heavenly missive. Had burned the pages in a fit of fear behind Aziraphale's back, _didn't even open it, angel, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have._ She buried her head in his neck, and he felt the damp touch of hidden tears. His hands stroked her hair, the undulating length of her spine, and he knew she trembled at the thought of scorched bookshops.

Aziraphale had kissed the back of her hand, complimented the careful black outlining her eyes, ravaged her red wet mouth. Still, it wasn't long before she was whispering in his ear about _changes._ He was used to serpent-suggestions, had become fond of temptations that lead to forked-tongue ideas, but this time she had such purpose. Crowley knew Aziraphale well, knew he didn't like change, and so she tried to ease him into it the only way she knew how—by coiling suggestions around him slowly.

_Remember when you were that housewife for a day in the '50s? Threw that charity ball to combat alarmism about the Cold War? I remember watching you sip cocktails out of dainty crystal, your hair pinned in perfect curls, that polka-dot dress, angel. Remember how it took Heaven ages to process the paperwork? I think you were reprimanded in the '80s for it. They didn't even send Gabriel._

Yes, he played coy, played dumb, but with his tongue stroking the lines of her slick heat, he understood her angle. Being on the run kept them safe, but they'd be safer if another unexpected cog was thrown into Heaven's wheel. Aziraphale simply wasn't ready.

They moved from Ohio to Hawaii. Crowley chewed her black-painted nails, snapped at him when he left their rented condo while she slept to sit on the beach and watch the hatchling turtles follow the moonlight to the sea. Her coils tightened, but he kissed them smooth, held them gently.

Still, anxiety radiated from her as they sunbathed, her shoulders hunched, muscles corded into knots. He pulled her nervous-moody soul into the bright-blue waves, splashed her until she laughed and kicked up sand as she ran from him. He kissed her just as the sun descended over the horizon, listened to her chatter about green flashes and mirages and optical phenomenon as he sampled fresh ahi tuna. Gold colored his life—the bright disc of the sun, the burnished gilt of Crowley's slit eyes, the love nearly exploding out of his chest. But behind the light, lay the shadow.

 _Are you worried that Heaven will take me_ ? he asked once, finally addressing this building dread she harbored. She hadn't removed her sunglasses for days. _Or that I'll leave you for them?_

 _Both,_ she whispered, and that untethered shame flavored the way she paced, the way her mind spun silent, maddening thoughts that he could never be privy to, the way her smile wobbled when she accidentally confessed, _I love you more and I won't survive it when you're gone._ Her legs over his shoulders then, his fingers spanning deep inside her, his mouth a slave to her needs, and he made sure she took that particular sentiment back. He thought he'd proven himself to her. That he'd made up for his transgressions at the bandstand.

He made up his mind at that point. Change wasn't distasteful because of the differences, but because it made him feel uncomfortable, out of his skin, unsettled. He wasn't like Crowley, couldn't try on a new face or body on a whim. He liked his waistcoat, the way his nose upturned, the way he understood the comforts and identity of _this_ body. But his serpent was rattled, hissing at the postman, striking at waiters, coiled around him like he might disappear at any moment.

They needed to be safe. Crowley needed to _feel_ safe. So, he booked them tickets back to the cottage, back to England, back to their first home.

Now, Aziraphale pointed to the oncoming storm. Crowley scrunched up her nose in distaste. "Hate the rain," she muttered. Her arms crossed, rubbing her elbows for comfort. Studying everything with a cynical, panicked eye. "What are we doing here, angel?"

Aziraphale smiled, knew it to be indulgent, as the raindrops began to fall. This was a different breed of storm from the one in Eden, even from the deluge that flooded the world. Beams of sunlight cut through the dark clouds, lighting up the green grass leading to the precipice in shades of light and dark. Beyond, the sea lapped as a gray-blue expanse of beauty with white-frothed lips. Lighting struck, nearly blinding him, in a haze of purple and yellow. A sign. He remembered the reverberation through Heaven when the angels fell, their light falling far faster than the thunder of damnation. If he was going to be terrified, he might as well be full of the sublime, too. Might as well take the plunge. Aziraphale stepped into the rain.

"Angel, get back here. Your coat! You'll be soaked!"

Aziraphale turned. "Come out here with me!" he called. The scent of earth and water expanded inside him, his lungs billowing like sails, and he knew down to the very barb and quill of his feathers that this was _right._ This love he felt—it was sacred.

Crowley hesitated. Her head cocked to the side in consideration. Aziraphale began to change slowly, the brightness and shadows splitting his face in two—the feminine and the masculine. The moment Crowley noticed it, she followed without hesitation, her long legs striding, hips swaying to catch him.

 _You've made one of the most beautiful creatures in the world,_ Aziraphale said to God. _And she's chosen me._

Crowley's flaming hair fell across her forehead. Twin moons of crimson stained her high cheeks. She shivered, her pink mouth parting just enough for her tongue to slide a slick shine across her lower lip. His poor serpent was so miserable in the cold, but it would be worth it. This wasn't just a rainstorm. Aziraphale had come here with a question heavy in his mouth, after all. He'd come here to voice a promise.

Aziraphale reached out, cradled Crowley's jaw with gentle fingers and kissed the demon with everything he had. He pressed his hands along her long neck, watched the sunlight grace the fallen angel until she stood bathed in gold, the rain like pearls of illumination falling on them both.

"I have a question for you." Aziraphale sounded breathless. His lips throbbed with the taste of her. A familiar bite of the infernal, the dragging want of the Abyss.

"I love questions," Crowley laughed into his—no, her—mouth. Her face softened, fingertips brushing Aziraphale's transformed face as if looking at something long lost.

"I'm yours forever, if you'll have me," Aziraphale whispered. "Be my wife today, my husband tomorrow. It doesn't have to be ordained in Her eyes. It's in the eyes of the Earth, the thing we both love and fought for. The grass is our altar, the ocean our officiant, the sunlight our vows. It is unbreakable, what I feel for you. Say yes, darling. Know that I'm yours, always. That this is ours. That you come first."

_I need someone to save me, and that someone is you. I've been running to this altar for centuries. You've always been drastic and yet so patient, always been waiting for me to catch up, but I've been following your lines. I know where they’ll bring me. Home._

Crowley's smile could've broken the heavens. "Obviously," she whispered, suddenly shy. A flush of black scales rippled down her chest. Her bronze eyes shimmered. "Like I'd say no. This is too Victorian a scene to say no to, angel."

"Lord, you vex me." Aziraphale's smile broadened. A poem thundered in her veins, a sonnet wood-burned on her bones in every language. Her arms slid around Crowley's narrow waist. "I want you to know in your heart that I choose you. That I love you above all. So say it, dearest. Say you'll keep me."

"Yes," Crowley murmured, her voice slanted dark with longing and brimstone want. "'Course I will, angel. Worthless without you, me. Nothing I want more in this universe than you and me. Together."

**This isn't right. This isn't what I'm looking for. Reevaluate identification terms. Relaunch search.**

***

**Module Two**

**Query: adversary, temptation, corruption, demonic claiming, ownership, influence, abyss power**

**Seeking...seeking...seeking...**

**Acquired.**

Aziraphale studied her reflection with a hand poised on her hip. She turned to see the fall of the black skirt along her backside, evaluating the curves and dips of her body. She sighed, rubbed the edge of her lip line to smooth any stray gloss, and ran through the scenarios she'd encounter when Crowley returned home.

It was their anniversary. The serpent had acquired tickets to a re-imagining of Wagner's _Tristan and Isolde_ as a surprise, but Aziraphale had secretly decided to do something _out of character._ As much as she adored a good opera, a crumpled blue pamphlet had been shoved under the Archive's doorway three weeks ago with a truly outrageous scribble supposed to resemble modern art. The pamphlet advertised a band Crowley had taken to singing under her breath lately, some punk-techno mumbo-jumbo that profited on making Velvet Underground covers.

Aziraphale bought tickets in a rash state of mind and then realized, with a cold strike of alarm, that she had nothing appropriate to wear to an underground club in the heart of London. Honestly, she didn't think she'd ever been to an underground club since the 1920s.

Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. Her wardrobe had been upgraded, but she still took to tartan bows at her throat and cream-colored suit jackets and cable-knit fishermen's sweaters in beige. A quick computer inquiry revealed that club dress code required...pleather. Glitter. Sequins. Heaven above, _skirts._

Aziraphale had a quiet panic attack in the back room of the bookshop and medicated herself by chugging a fine scotch followed by a terrible red she didn't bother to miracle better. Crowley had discovered a very drunk and angst-filled angel and pouted that Aziraphale had begun the party without her. _Rude, angel._ Aziraphale had cuddled her better, and kept her wife off the scent by showering the serpent with such devotion that had Crowley muttering, _That's nauseating,_ while burying her beet-red face in Aziraphale's neck.

There was a reason the Allies had commissioned her help in defeating the Nazis in the first place, after all. Aziraphale could be sneaky. She could by _sly._

Under cover of darkness next to a sleeping demon, Aziraphale fretted. She catalogued her body in the mirror and came up with the word _matronly_. For the first time in a long time, Aziraphale felt the deep sea pressure of social conformity. She didn't want to look just lovely—she wanted to be fetching. She wanted to sweep Crowley off her feet and she wasn't sure she could do that in a tan cardigan and herringbone blouse.

Boutiques, then. Aziraphale entered them like striding onto the battlefield, emerged exhausted if victorious, blood-stained with the knowledge that she should really bless every human larger than a size eight to find clothes, period, because _honestly,_ these shops. Yet, the angel of the Eastern Gate had found her armor, customized out of silks and lace, accent splashes and complementary colors.

A gray silk drape of a shirt, something with thin straps that clung to her shoulders and flowed in a V down the valley of her breasts. An idiotic lace bra that would keep the round swells in their place, while revealing just enough to be enticing (the shop owner had said _sexy,_ and Aziraphale had blushed so furiously she had to lock herself in the dressing room to gather herself). The shirt tucked into a black pleated skirt with an iridescent shimmer, and a wide belt with ridiculous buckles that did absolutely _nothing_ cinched in her waist. And finally, because Aziraphale couldn't resist a hint of color, bright yellow pumps that shot her up a good few inches. _Matronly_ still echoed in her mind, but she must've had a shiver of approval somewhere along the way or she wouldn't have walked out of the store with bundles of bags and a new credit card. She _really_ needed to stop Crowley from paying for everything with that sleek charge card of hers all the time. Having to miracle herself a credit score had been an embarrassing experience.

Now, she fretted over her legs—too much skin? She agonized over colors—did the black wash her out, did the gray make her white-blonde curls look lank? But it was too late—the Archive's bell chimed, her name was hollered, and nothing remained but to face the bebop.

She tottered past the bookshelves and into the main room. Crowley sorted through their opera tickets with a frown on her face (probably from trying to un-miracle the secret miracle Aziraphale had cast to change the date on the tickets for the following week). A black velvet box balanced in her other hand, topped with a small glossy ribbon. "Can't expect much from fucking Wagner, but for Satan's sake..." Crowley growled as her demonic influence filled the room, centralized on the tickets to no avail. "This is bloody infuriating..."

"Darling," Aziraphale said softly, and clasped her hands in front of her.

"Angel, I'm so sorry. I wanted to surprise you with _Tristan and Isolde_ , but apparently I got the dates wrong and Wagner is resistant to the occult..." Crowley looked up and trailed off.

"I know you did," Aziraphale said. Her heart leapt in her throat as she kept her voice as fluffy as meringue. _Steady on, Principality._ "Isolde can wait, if it's not too much trouble. I had something else in mind."

"Who? Isolde? That's fine. Tristan, after all. Knob. Black?"

"Black?"

"You're wearing black?"

"Oh," Aziraphale swayed her hips, letting the skirt flare. _This old thing?_ "Thought I'd give it a spin. What do you think?" _Fetching? Flattering? Do you fancy it?_

"Flash," Crowley said, instead.

Aziraphale would take it.

Crowley slunk closer with a cobra’s hypnotic sway and circled Aziraphale. The opera tickets slipped into an inner pocket of her leather jacket. She reached out. Aziraphale commanded her lungs to behave as Crowley brushed the ponytail and bobby pins gathering Aziraphale's curls to the side and sending them cascading over one shoulder.

"Poofy," Crowley said, her sunglasses slipping down her nose, showing just a hint of bronzed gold.

"I had a blow out," Aziraphale gushed. "It was marvelous. They use flat irons, put all this mousse and oil in to stop the frizz. The smell, it takes me back to the Byzantine, you know—rose water and eucalyptus. I should be doing this every week, you know, especially if I'm going to keep it this long."

"Ngk," Crowley responded, her fingers hovering from the blonde loops to Aziraphale's bare shoulder. "Jacket?"

"I don't think so. It looks lovely outside and my research tells me clubs generally run hot."

Crowley's mouth dropped. She took in a jagged breath. "No Wagner, then?"

"No Wagner," Aziraphale confirmed. "I've read about _fruity cocktails,_ though. Sex on the Beach, what a name! Cosmopolitan? Delightful sounding. Thought we might try someplace new, there might be a band you'll enjoy, I can sample the local flavor. What do you think, my dear?"

"Sure, angel. Anything you like."

"Oh, wonderful. To the Bentley, then?"

"I..." Crowley glanced down at the box in her hand, a lost look overwhelming her. "I have something for you. It's an anniversary gift. Not that I need to justify buying my own wife a gift just because the earth made another trip around the sun, but it's not what you'd normally wear, not so angelic, little sinful. But I thought, I just thought..." She shoved the velvet into Aziraphale's hands and trained her eyes on the carpet.

Aziraphale offered up a fond smile as Crowley swallowed hard. _Silly, nervous serpent._ The black box opened with a stiff snap. Within, the slink and shimmer of gold chains filled Aziraphale's vision. "Oh my," she breathed.

Crowley unclipped the necklace from the box and suspended the jewelry between her hands. Hundreds of thin chains strung together, a piece fit for an Egyptian queen instead of a stuffy bookseller. "May I?" Crowley asked in a husky voice.

Aziraphale felt something seep into the air—soot, fire, and instinct. The taste of the Pit. Crowley normally kept such demonic urges suppressed, but it slunk to the surface now, breathing perdition and want across the desert of her ethereal being. Aziraphale tipped her head to the side, exposing the long line of her throat, and shivered as the occult sensation increased. The necklace felt cold on her throat, cinched up high and tight, and then pooled down low in swoops between her breasts, lost in her shirt.

Crowley stepped back, her breath low and strained. The abyss cracked further, the slits of her golden eyes alight with something inhuman. Aziraphale peered up at her through her eyelashes, halted the demand on her lips to _forget the concert, have me now, there’s a nice wall just there,_ but she wanted them to wait. She wanted to stir this pandemonium in Crowley until Aziraphale told her she was ready and _then_ she wanted the abyss to shatter. "Let's go, my dear, or we'll be late."

The club was loud, the bass dirty, the cocktails overly sweet. Aziraphale thrummed with energy as the bartender—his eyes white with X's through them—handed her another martini glass and tipped his head in appreciation at Crowley's snake eyes. Crowley blushed and turned away. This was new, her eyes being normal. What a modified world they lived in.

Aziraphale sipped magenta liquid tasting of peach with a paper umbrella in it. Crowley's fingers skimmed down her arm to the small of her back, barely touching. Aziraphale spun, delighting in the way the skirt brushed against her thighs, felt the telltale heaviness in the back of her head that spoke of a buzz. "Do you like the band?" she half-shouted. The guitars plucked a chromatic scale. On stage, the modified musicians jumped and sang while back-up robots sent fireworks into the air to the coo of the crowd. "Do you want to dance?"

"You can't dance, angel."

"All I can do is bob," Aziraphale yelled into her ear. "I'm hindered by women's fashion."

"Satan's sake," Crowley swore, took her hand, and led her into the center of the pulsating mob. 

Aziraphale licked the rim of her glass, tossed the rest of the concoction back, and let the cocktails wipe away any inclinations that she might look foolish. She wasn't sure how she felt about all this deafening noise, but she enjoyed Crowley's hands thumbing the edge of her ribs as they swayed to the song, enamored as the demon sang along to the lyrics.

And it was there again, the beast leaking out of Crowley. Aziraphale's stomach clenched as the demon's eyes flickered to Aziraphale's lips. Crowley closed the distance and kissed her in a strange hellish claim. The world swayed, and Aziraphale felt like she rode in the Bentley, the landscape of this experience flying by her. Crowley’s hand tightened around her neck, her tongue stroking Aziraphale’s, and then Aziraphale felt things begin to tip sideways. The crowd faded away, the music too much. She didn’t just want that serpent touch in her mouth, she wanted it taking care of the pesky heat throbbing between her legs. 

Crowley wrenched away and dragged them out of the throb of humanity, crashing the bathroom door open, her mouth open and hot against Aziraphale's. Aziraphale didn't know what to do, had fallen into a holding pattern of following, letting Crowley back her up against the sink. _You don't play with fire and not expect to have ash on your hands, Principality. She's going fast, but it's okay, it's okay._

Hands fumbled at her thighs. Aziraphale was lifted up, settled against the counter, her mouth dominated rough and messy. Aziraphale wrapped her legs around Crowley's black jeans, her heels scrabbling against the walls bracketing them. The rough snake belt bit into her knees. Crowley sucked marks across her bare shoulders, the gold necklace shivering with each needy breath, frantic fingers hiking her skirt up. "Fuck, fuck," Crowley whispered. "How are you like this, how did you get like this—"

"Just made this way," Aziraphale moaned, her fingers carding through Crowley's short hair as a hand cupped her breast, diving past the lace bra, thumbing her nipple. "Crowley, the door. Miracle the door closed—"

"No," Crowley growled. "Someone might walk in. Might see you in your bloody skirt with your fucking legs. Someone might walk in and see me here between your thighs—"

"Crowley _, the door."_

"Satan's sake, people have been looking at you all night, angel—"

"I came with you."

"Doesn't matter, doesn't matter, fuck."

And then Aziraphale's skirt rucked up fully around her waist, her bottom cold against the counter. A strangled sound left Crowley's thin mouth and Aziraphale felt the slim lace pushed aside, fingertips sliding against her clit.

"Fuck, angel, you're so wet, these are gonna be wrecked."

"Don't care," Aziraphale said as Crowley stroked her faster. _"Oh."_

"There's nowhere I'd rather be," Crowley panted, "than here, between your legs."

"Is it the hair?" Aziraphale gasped, wishing she could shut up, pleading to erase this need to justify her actions. She used to do it in reports to Heaven, and she did it now. Not questions, per se, just confirmations to ease this fear in her heart that she hadn't done things right. "The skirt? The music? What is it?"

_I'll replicate it. I'll wear this every day if that's what you'd like._

"Everything," Crowley groaned and fumbled at her own belt unsuccessfully as one hand sunk knuckle deep in Aziraphale. Aziraphale’s hips bucked, riding those hands, aching at the press. Crowley’s hair clutched in her hands, red threads leading her on and on, building her to release the pressure thick inside her.

"Consequence of too tight trousers, my dear," Aziraphale laughed, breathless at Crowley's low frustrated scream as even Crowley's thin hips refused to yield. "You'll have to wait to come until later. Stay on edge for me until I let you. You'll just have to do what you do best and please me."

Who was she, she wondered, that these things pooled out of her mouth, loosened with the saccharine slickness of vodka and pear, the liquor of triple sec. Forgive this terrible angel, this awful servant of God. She was a creature that gluttoned and coveted. The only thing saving her was the terror to question. Aziraphale learned not to ask. Aziraphale simply _does_ and hopes for the best.

"You'll fucking kill me, angel, just put the knife to my throat, the things you do to me, please—"

Aziraphale’s tits fell out of her bra and Crowley sucked, making Aziraphale slam her head back on the Sharpie-marred mirror. Crowley widened her, slipping further inside and she undulated against those slim fingers, those hands meant for so much—tools crafted for hunting and gathering and making Aziraphale come in a sleazy bathroom in some underground club—

"Harder," Aziraphale commanded and Crowley kicked them into gear, speeding over a hundred to the end. Golden eyes drinking it all in, watching Aziraphale writhe and clench around her relentless fingers, the sensation of the Pit wrapping around her and holding her tight as Aziraphale tipped her head back with a cry and came.

Crowley breathed heavy against her neck. “If we don’t go home right now, I might explode.”

Aziraphale shook, balanced against the sink and demon, her whole body thudding. “Of course.” Her voice sounded raspy, low.

Crowley careened them out of the bathroom, checking to ensure Aziraphale's skirt lay flat. The thrum of electric harpsichords and lutes followed them outside, and Aziraphale's head spun as Crowley snapped her fingers. The familiar smell of their home suddenly overwhelmed her: the books, the plants, the knit blankets, and Crowley grinned feral at her.

“Miracling us home now? What about the car?” Aziraphale asked, wrenching Crowley’s shirt off her shoulders, her fingers tracing Crowley’s small nipples. 

“Car’s like a cat,” Crowley whimpered as Aziraphale replaced her fingers with her mouth. “It’ll find its way home.”

“The poor dear,” Aziraphale said. “We’ll have to make amends and take it out on a nice drive. Now take these infernal pants off.”

Crowley flung her combat boots down the stairs, slithered out of her jeans, and finally _finally_ slid the length of her lithe body against Aziraphale. Aziraphale backed Crowley onto the bed, and methodically stripped out of her skirt, her shirt--

“Leave the necklace,” Crowley whispered low, “and the shoes.”

Aziraphale smiled and joined her on the bed. They sat naked, legs wrapped around each other, hands working furiously at each other's cunts. Mouths open and panting.

"I had a necklace like this," Crowley whispered as if frantic, bending Aziraphale's neck back to bite at the links, leaving marks under the gold. "I stole it from some monastery. Kept it in a longboat. I wanted to give it to you, angel, wrap it around your neck, lay down some kind of fucking fealty to you."

Aziraphale dug her yellow pumps into Crowley's slender back. In the back of her throat, she tasted metal, the roll of ancient fog, the smooth runes cast from her hands to tumble on the soil and speak of fate. Ineffability. One and the same. "What else," she whimpered. "Tell me what else."

"I got off on that for months. And then I saw this in a shop window, walked by it three times before I gave in, I had to get it—"

Scales erupted under Aziraphale's hands. Iridescent and dry and smelling of Hell. She kissed Crowley hard. Fangs nicked her tongue, drawing blood. "Put your mouth on me," she gasped. _Ruin me. Make a mess of me. It's what you want._

Crowley tipped her on her back, lifted Aziraphale’s legs over her shoulders. Her mouth delved into the wet heat of her while her black-painted nails worked at her breasts, the necklace cold between them. Aziraphale gripped fire-red hair tight in approval. She smiled with blood-coated teeth at the ceiling and felt used, wanted, praised. She couldn't get enough of it.

A despairing gasp startled her, caused her to glance away from Crowley naked and luxurious between her spread thighs. A woman she didn't know stood in the darkness of the flat: short brunette, gray suit, purple eyes wide in shock.

A wave of holy rage encompassed Aziraphale.

This was a private, beloved moment. This person—whoever she was—tainted this. Aziraphale’s hand shot out and she channeled the power of Heaven. "You're not welcome here," she commanded as if she would lead a holy battalion. The power slammed into the stranger, shoved her through the door, and dragged Aziraphale's ethereal spirit along with her. Away from her bed. Away from Crowley.

And somewhere, Aziraphale felt stripped, a layer peeled off of her, leaving her floating. Leaving her raw.

***

**Module Three**

**Query: I have been stripped, I have been disemboweled, where am I, what is happening to me, Crowley where are you?**

**Seeking...seeking...seeking...**

**Acquired.**

The gathering of angelic war veterans in the sterile halls of Heaven happened in secret.

This was a familiar nightmare, one played out the few times Aziraphale had entertained the notion of sleep. Within it, he closed his wings, slowed his spinning wheels, and shut all of his eyes except for two blazing pools of blue. The white gauze of starlight and clouds wrapped around him like a shroud, keeping his identity hidden. Other ethereal souls chose anonymity as well—togas of night sky and robes of blinking galaxies hiding them, as well as their exhaustion, from their victory. From their fellow warriors still celebrating the war. From Her. 

Their brothers and sisters were now demons. A new realm had been created specifically to hurt and punish them. Blood had been cleaned from their angelic blades. They had won. Yet, morale had plummeted. Unhappiness plagued the armies of Heaven, hidden behind smiles of righteousness and the weekly memos to go back to how things were.

Aziraphale didn't understand why he needed to stand amongst his fellow angels in a forgotten hallway of Heaven used for storage, his throat closing around words he didn't know how to express. After all, he'd done his duty. He'd done what his Creator commanded of him. Still, why did this silence hang heavy among them, tinged with the taste of fear? The archangels wouldn't approve of this meeting, a gathering composed of nothing but quiet waiting; who would dare speak? If anyone did break the silence, they would all be reported as sympathizers. And yet, they'd come to stand together without knowing _why._

With a shiver of premonition, he somehow remembered the _future._ He remembered standing against a white columned pillar, watching a red-haired fierce thing haunted by the fates. She asked why it was against the law to grieve for her brother. Antigone, they called her. She defied orders. She performed funeral rituals only to be condemned to the dark earth, faced with the choice to take her life alone. Rope around her throat, so similar to the choke hold Aziraphale had felt since the Fall.

He wept afterwards, falling to his knees, pounding his heart in the middle of a busy street. The feeling finally had a name, one which the humans had voiced with their toolbox of literature and imagination and creativity. _We only wanted to mourn. But to grieve would be a sin, wouldn't it? It would mean we felt compassion for those fallen. It would go against our holy duty. We wanted to perform rituals, lay flowers, engrave names on altars, but we didn't know how. This is what had been missing from that long hallway. The word for grief._

When the flamed-haired demon found him later that day, the drink had left Aziraphale swimming in black unconsciousness. The demon—name, name, what was the name for his personal Antigone, his ferocious Boudicca—had helped him up, whispered in a worried way, _What's wrong with you?_ The wind whipped his curls back and Aziraphale caught one in his fingers. Rubbing the strands, he fought the press of tears, the urge to scream. _Who grieved for you?_ _Did someone come to that gathering with you in their thoughts? Does another have your true name on their lips, your face in their dreams?_ _Who thinks of you and wishes you back home?_

_How awful am I, to be thankful for your damnation. I don't think there is anyone else for me that isn't you._

The vision broke, leaving Aziraphale shaking, his eyes wet. He looked past the silent angels, and caught the eyes of another. Purple irises glared into his cornflower blue stare and a roll of hatred flowed over him. A familiar red line, thin as a strand of hair, wound around his wrist and connected to the other angel. Aziraphale gave it a tug, felt the fish hook embedded in his heart pull and ache. Somehow, their lifelines entwined.

In the future, this angel would dislike him. In the future, this archangel would hate him because Aziraphale saw him at his weakest.

 _Gabriel,_ Aziraphale thought. _Part of this is your memory. Who do you mourn? What name do you wake with on your lips? Who did you lose to the Pit?_

A wave of shame rolled through him, the thoughts overwhelming him like a riptide.

**Long black hair and I stabbed them, tossed them bleeding into the Abyss and I didn't ask why, I followed orders, I had orders, I'm not supposed to feel this way about a fallen angel that defied our Maker, why am I suffocating on this feeling, why did they leave me just for answers, I fucking followed orders...**

***

"How can she do that—see my memories?"

"It's a reverse system. You're plugged in her mind, searching her subconscious. There's a good chance she can access your mind too—"

"Fucking humans. Can't do anything right. How do you stop it?"

"You can't, you just have to maintain control. She's nearly comatose. Anything she does is a reflex, a mental barrier to protect herself. You have to stay calm. Maybe hone your query to a specific question, a particular moment. It's in the training manual, didn't you read it before you plugged in?"

"I'm a fucking archangel. I don't need a monkey like you to tell me how to do this."

"Excuse me? You're a what?"

"Nevermind. I haven't found what I'm looking for. It's taking too long and she's starting to...deteriorate."

"That's exactly why I wanted to do this in a facility. In a safe environment. You can't predict back alley procedures like this. There's an inherent danger to scrambling her mind."

"Shut up. Keep her stable for as long as possible. I'm going back in."


	7. Medusa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter artwork by @Papipoppy.

Once, Crowley created the stars. Dipping her paintbrush in pots of light, she swirled photons in the black canvas of eternity to create vortexes and galaxies.

The rumbles of the rebellion’s discontent had reached her via water cooler conversation. It did make a lot of sense. Why did the heavenly host put in all this labor for humans with mayfly lives? When did the sons of fire get to kick back and enjoy their art, delight in the taste of creation, taste the fruit they perfected with glaze and baked in the kiln?

_ When have you laid back and enjoyed the stars, instead of seeking the imperfections in craftsmanship, _ one angel asked, nudging Crowley's shoulder.  _ When was the last time you saw the beauty you made instead of eyeing the next step in the process? Is your work the only thing that defines you? _

Crowley started hanging out with that questioning crowd. She laughed at self-deprecation, waggled her eyebrows at inside jokes in front of other stone-faced archangels. The whole sauntering vaguely downwards had technically been true, but Crowley knew the exact moment She cast her out. It had been up there, among the constellations. Sitting in the middle of glittering gold, red, and blue cosmic pillars. Her paintbrush dangling from her hand, and Crowley wondered if she was a goddess to the stars. She pondered if she could be considered a god to humans, for making them such a beautiful universe. God handed out assignments, sure, but Crowley created, Crowley crafted. 

If Crowley could make, could she unmake?

Her paintbrush mixed the color wheel of the night sky with the darkness of emptiness. She pushed bright starlight aside, and dug a hole through the canvas with the pigments. Creation resisted, so Crowley used her fingers, smearing her mark into the clay. The dark glaze speckled her face like freckles. Still, she worked and it was unlike anything she'd made before. It was like she'd put a piece of her ethereal soul into this: a creation made without orders, something crafted from her vision because she wanted to.

The new entity swirled as an open panting mouth. The thing ebbed and sucked, a black hole in the middle of the universe as hungry as Crowley's heart. Growing, expanding, destroying, devouring. Black as coal. Crowley nudged galactic pinpricks inside it. The stars shattered.

A wave of unease cascaded over her then as she stared at her new...God, she could only call it an abomination, and at the same time, she finally understood that the same devouring darkness festered in the desert soil of her. Without a moment to think, to regret, to undo, her wings lit on fire. She plummeted. Not from a cloud or from a sea of grace, but from the edge of annihilation, armed with the knowledge that her imagination had created the first piece of ultimate destruction in the universe. Into a pool of sulphur she crashed, where she emerged slithering, the divinity burned out her. Her creative spark snuffed out. Love gone. Everything she had been devoured by that black hole of questioning.

That hungry mouth expanded inside her now. Fred surveyed the Archive’s destruction as if in shock. The holy water, contained in plastic containers, loaded up in the Bentley. Drones buzzed above them and with a surge of rage, Crowley snapped her fingers. The machines dropped like flies.

Give her her paintbrushes again and she'd paint this whole world black. Her red tresses slithered like serpents, and it was fitting that Medusa had been carved from her image. Maybe, with a glare, she could turn everything to stone, instead. Her mortal form stuttered. Hell rode her bones, no matter how hard she fought, howling:  _ There's nothing left without the golden-bright, nothing left but to ask which throats to rip _ ,  _ whose limbs to sever and what a centerpiece we'd make of our revenge. _

_ Hush. _ Crowley whispered back and closed her eyes.  _ Turn your head away until the darkness goes. _

_ There’s nothing left but to make darkness, _ Hell answered.  _ In the name of the golden-bright. _

When did they begin calling the angel that? Golden-bright? Early on, when names had power and to give it was a gift. Sometime when Cain slit Abel's throat. Aziraphale's tears had mingled with the spilt blood on the mountain, and then he’d asked Crowley what lay in the Land of Nod. What did Crowley know of such things? She only knew that Aziraphale astounded her, made her want to show off and do something drastic for that attention that would soon disappear, not to be seen for decades. And sometimes when she was alone again, Crowley stared into the sun to let spots pockmark her vision while Hell listed off everything it loved about the golden-bright.

Hell coveted the angel on the Wall after catching sight of a golden-bright halo so vulnerable without a flaming sword. Hell desired the angel's kohl-darkened eyes and hidden curves beneath a pagan sheath in the woods belonging to Odin. Hell loved the angel fainting into her arms from cinched stays, the way the golden-bright clung to her, trusted her. Hell obsessed over the way the golden-bright loved it back: wearing its offerings, coaxing it out into the open, soothing its senseless fury when it wanted to burn Crowley up like a cheap chemical cigarette. It took Crowley much longer to realize that Hell was simply a compartment in her heart, nestled close to the black hole of questioning. That Hell and she? They were one and the same.

But it was hard to accept that. After all, Hell was nothing but burned out divinity, the love she once held for Her. Better to look at the ugly thing and declare it separate, keep it locked away.

But because they both wanted the golden-bright back, Hell put its nose to the ground and sniffed like a bloodhound. They’d done this before when the bookshop burned, her Hell searching the flaming books and scorched carpet and coming up with nothing.  _ Aziraphale, where the Heaven are you, you idiot? I can’t do this again without you. _

"What do we do?" Fred asked.

_ Paint it black, _ Hell whispered, the full strength of its power scouring the city.  _ Even the sun. _

Crowley shuddered. Chaotic destruction was not the solution. Tendrils slipped from her as pieces of her corporeal form failed, a toss of watercolor coating the ground around her, spreading out like roots, seeking, searching. The black hole inside her widened, starving. "Stay here. Manage damage control," she said and fought as Fred's eyes widened with fear. He took an involuntary step back. Her voice echoed with a strange chittering as her grasp on Hell slipped even further.

_ Found it, _ Hell tossed its head back and bayed.  _ Desecration. _

Fred fell to his knees and whimpered, words like _ please _ and  _ mother _ and  _ don't _ slipping out.

"Hush now," Crowley said softly, the monstrous lacing her words. She hadn’t been this far from inhuman in a long time. "No harm will come to you. But do not forget what you are here to do."

"What  _ are _ you?"

"Your new boss." She smiled.

Crowley slipped into her car, felt Hell settle into the engine as it roared to life and puffed on magicked petrol, rubbed against the alternator's heat, exuded fumes. As she drove, the black hole ate the world around her, narrowing London to a pulsing point of fading aurous divinity.

_ The golden-bright is dying, _ Hell whispered.  _ We must hurry. _


	8. Of Blood and Maidens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter artwork by @Songbird-Of-Eden.

**Module Four**

**Query: Why do you believe the demon is worthy?**

**Seeking...seeking...seeking...**

**Acquired.**

Divine wrath pounded down from the clouds in sheets of rain. Trees bowed beneath the howling wind. Birds plummeted from the sky with waterlogged wings. The steady thump of their fragile bodies hitting the earth made Aziraphale's heart clench. He was earthbound, now, and desperately chasing the flame-touched demon racing across a flooding terrain. He kept up, but barely. _Heaven above, she was just too fast, blessed with legs made for speed._

"Please," Crowley cried out as thunder cracked like a whip. _"Please come back."_

The runaway unicorn galloped through the storm, trying to outpace them. If the demon and angel stopped running, even for a moment, the magnificent creature would be lost in the haze of the rainstorm. 

The sharp crags of a ravine punctured the sky like a knife. A lightning bolt of terror cascaded through Aziraphale as he thought of backed-up water sluicing through as a flash flood, an untapped well eager to fill the narrow canyon Crowley raced into. Within, the demon cornered the unicorn.

Mud coated the creature's shining coat and gnarled its mane into tangled ropes. Its dark eyes rolled in fear. Aziraphale put his hands on his knees, gasping in the wet and tasting metal, shaken to the bone, grateful for a reprieve. Crowley held her hands out, approaching the creature carefully. "I'm not going to hurt you," she said, her low voice sheathed with calm.

 _Unicorns only come to the innocent,_ Aziraphale remembered as the ground gave way beneath his feet. He shook his head to clear it—but this was another future fractal glimpse from one of his endless eyes that spanned across timelines and dimensions. Within this future, Aziraphale saw the demon as a red-headed Elizabeth, her small breasts heaving over the square neckline of her gown, her waist narrowed to an artificial hourglass with whale bone, meandering around moss-covered tombstones and waxing on about Avalon behind her shoulder to Aziraphale. Long locks braided with gold thread tumbled down her back and how Aziraphale yearned to cup her skull, breathe the scent of her magic to erase the scum of Catholics versus Protestants burning opposing believers on the stake.

Puddles widened into ponds beneath him. The water reached his ankles. _Unicorns only laid their heads in the laps of pure maidens._

Crowley's fingers whispered across the unicorn's neck. Foam frothed at the creature's mouth. "You're safe," she said. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Thunder boomed. Lighting lit up the demon's serpent-split eyes, and the unicorn reared with a whinny of terror, bucking away. Skittish of snakes, yet drawn to maidens, and Crowley was a mixture of both.

Crowley lunged for the unicorn again, but the creature dodged, galloping past her, pausing briefly in its flight. Crowley took the bait, running for the unicorn, barely catching the wild mane before the unicorn fled out of reach again.

"Why won't you come to me?" Crowley openly wept. "If you don't, you'll _die._ I promise I'm good enough, I'm safe enough. I won't hurt you. Why won't you come here? Why won’t you let me help?"

"Crowley—" Aziraphale reached out and grasped her shoulder, but Crowley pushed him off. Her long legs kicked up mud as she chased the fleeing unicorn, but there were only so many places left they could go. The world was ending in a flood, and the ark was closed and full.

_You're just as stubborn, just as wild. Just as kind-hearted. While you're trying to save the unicorn, I'm trying to save you from God’s wrath. Let me hold my hands out to you. Believe that I'm safe, that you can trust me. I won't saddle you, won't shove a bit in your mouth. You won't be broken under my care. I only want to bring you in from the rain._

Soon, the unicorn became a speck of white fading far into the gray deluge. Aziraphale gasped as he watched the last sight of it disappear, running toward its own extinction. Crowley fell to her knees, head tilted to the sky, and screamed. Aziraphale's wings ached as they emerged, shielding them both as the rain pelted his feathers. He knelt. His arms wrapped around Crowley's shaking shoulders. The eyes on his wings nuzzled her.

"I can't catch her, Aziraphale." Crowley's chest heaved, her heart a frantic beat throbbing in her neck. Rain slicked her neck, droplets sliding down her skin. "She doesn't trust me."

Aziraphale laid a kiss in those red locks and murmured useless words, things he'd never said before. "It's not you. You're the anomaly in this world. I've never met a sweeter heart in all my long years."

 _Don't let this world tame you. Don't let it shatter you. Saints are made from pious humans, but they can be made of the soft-hearted Fallen, too. Keep this heart, keep it safe._

Aziraphale's chest was made of glass, translucent enough to see right into his heaving lungs, the steel angel-bones of his ribs. This, too, was part of the nightmare, where Crowley shoved him off and continued to chase extinction, desperate to tame a dead species. Aziraphale could never catch up. He could never stop the tide from sweeping the demon up and drowning her. Her life cut. He’d cradle her limp form, the red threads of his arteries torn and dangling like wires from his heart.

Crowley was always too fast for him, no matter what time period they lived in, but somehow Aziraphale kept chasing. _Slow down, please. Don't leave me in the dust, don't leave me in the flood. Wait for me._

He wouldn't let Crowley uncurl their lifelines. He'd hold onto her heart. He'd keep her safe.

**This is unacceptable. I don't understand. I want to know how you could accept the occult into your ethereal being, how you could take in enough damnation and yet still be holy. The demon didn't do anything except run after a stupid horse. We must go back further.**

***

**Module Five**

**Query: Did you ever feel apathy for the rebels?**

**Seeking...seeking...seeking...**

**Acquired.**

The sword punctured Aziraphale's thigh—or what would be considered a thigh on a corporeal manifestation of a human body. He dropped to his knees with a gasp of pain. One shaking hand covered the open wound, while his other clutched weakly around the hilt of his sword. Golden ichor spilled onto Heaven's once-pure battleground. Around him, the bright starlight of warring angels fought. Behind him, the hungry heat of the Pit’s maw waited.

An unknown terror filled the principality—battle, until now, had been dignified, with the rebellion falling easily beneath the might of God's loyal followers. Somewhere along the way, this skirmish had turned bloody and brutal. The persistent fear of permanent discorporation sung in Aziraphale's stardust bones.

Now on his knees and standing above him, his enemy arched back to deliver a killing blow, outlined in Heaven's divine light, her lips twisted in a snarl of hate. 

_Not like this._ A bellow of fury erupted from Aziraphale. He slammed his flaming sword up, their blades screeching together. His wings expanded to their full width, beating in fast full pulls, launching him to his feet. Their swords clashed again, only Aziraphale had the upper hand, swinging in tight, calculated strokes until he finally cut into the wing joint of his attacker. The wing crumpled beneath his onslaught, the bright fire of his blade dampening with a spray of blood. The rebel angel's lion face reared back and sank fangs into Aziraphale's neck, ripping out his throat. Aziraphale’s own lion’s head roared in agony as his enemy twisted away, his ichor coating her jaws. 

Aziraphale choked, felt the hot throb of blood cascade down his front. He couldn't speak. His endless eyes tried to study the fractal fragments of the past, present, and future, but he could only focus on this moment and the inevitable outcome of his death. Fratricide. A prickling of panic thrummed in the back of his mind: he was hurt, his adversary was strong, and his surging wings kept him upright more than his leg did. Their swords met in wide and messy strikes.

Between exhausted, frantic parries and thrusts, he managed to catch sight of another one-one-one raging across Heaven’s great room: a fight between the archangel Gabriel and another dark-haired angel. Gabriel had the upper hand. His sword drove the rebel to the Pit’s precipice and pierced through their stomach. The angel screamed as Gabriel pushed them over the side. He turned to meet Aziraphale’s gaze, and Heaven’s light illuminated the tears coating his cheeks.

Aziraphale’s enemy—Lord, he didn’t even know her name—yanked on his wings with enough force for him to lose his grip on his sword. He crashed into her, sending both their weapons skittering to the ground. Aziraphale clenched his teeth as a haze of cold rage encompassed him. His eyes discarded any other fractal outcome but what happened now.

He'd never felt more mortal.

There was nothing in him except for ruthlessness, cruelty, and his dedication to Her cause. Beneath his soft underbelly, Aziraphale felt an apathetic ember light his core. He would not be defeated but one such as _this._

He had nothing but his wings, his light, his hands, and eyes to defend himself with and so he struck his enemy with fists, wrenched her down to the ground, made them both slick from the blood pouring from his torn throat and worthless leg. Together, they rolled closer to the edge of Hell. The rebel was like an animal—a clawing, snarling thing. The instinctual need to survive encompassed any holy purpose within Aziraphale.

The rebel shoved Aziraphale closer to the edge. His wings frantically beat to keep him steady and on Heaven's turf. The heat of Hell licked along his skin. He twisted as she rolled him to the side to dislodge him, and connected his foot with her knee. He grinned when he heard the crunch, and with one swift shove, he catapulted her over the ledge. 

The rebel screamed on her way down. Aziraphale gasped, his head hanging just over the edge, watching his former brethren burst into flames. Agony crawled up his leg, but it was nothing compared to what lay in his heart—that she'd hated him so much to try and kill him; the bloodied way they fought for survival; the fact that he’d been the mechanism for her ultimate Fall.

Of course, he'd driven the Fallen out of Heaven before, but this felt different. His scribe hands had been whittled down to weapons. His grin of victory twisted into one of horror.

Aziraphale, warrior and principality, let out a sob and swore in Her name that he would never be that mindless killing creature again. It was why, when he found another nervous rebel angel—or demon, as nomenclature dictated they be called—saddling up next to him on Eden’s wall with a cautious joke, Aziraphale offered shelter instead of slaughter.

But the battle wasn’t over yet. Aziraphale glanced up, numb, and watched as Gabriel slammed his sword through the rib cage of another rebel. Tears streamed from his purple eyes. _You did it too,_ Aziraphale thought, feeling an unnatural kinship. _We both fed War._

Another layer stripped off from the Guardian of the Eastern Gate until Aziraphale barely recalled humanity at all.

***

**Module Six**

**Query: When, in her name, was there ever a time you weren’t corrupted by Hell’s agent, Crowley?**

**Seeking...seeking...seeking...**

**Acquired.**

_Come and see what the Fallen have done_ , the committee of angels said. _Come Aziraphale, and look what these rebels have done to our universe, our creation._

Aziraphale sighed. Since the War, he'd hidden in Heaven's library, cataloguing new creations and ongoing reconstruction, even detailing Heaven's system of operations for ease of replication later. He didn't wander among the stars. He didn't coo over the blueprints for a new planet called Earth. And he definitely didn't speculate in water-cooler discussions about what had happened to their Fallen brethren.

Instead, he scribbled the names of the rebels into a ledger in the hopes he could present a tidy statistic for his superiors on those who had been lost. Sadly, this list wasn't immune to rumor or error, as the whispers indicated the... _demons_ had cast aside their God-given name in lieu of self-proclaimed ones. 

He also heard demons couldn't say their true names without being burned with divine fury. Some of them couldn't remember their first names at all. But all this poppycock talk was above him. He was a principality with dignity. He refused to reenact his part in the War for the entertainment of others. Wasn't it enough that the irritating limp persisted despite his best healing efforts? Wasn't it enough that his celestial-soprano had been ruined forevermore for the holy choir?

But he couldn't defy propriety. When a sect of concerned angels requested his professional opinion on a creation anomaly, he found no initial answer within his books. Thus, he gathered his portable writing desk, his cosmos-glitter ink, his parchment made from the fine silk ribbon of the galaxy, and flew into the firmament.

The angels were right. He'd never seen anything like it before: a point of nothingness swirling in the middle of the stars.

"What is it?" Gabriel asked, his arms tightly crossed and purple eyes narrowed in suspicion. Dislike radiated from him—and how could it be that after their shared moment of battlefield comradery, the archangel was still adverse to him? Aziraphale kept these questions locked up tight. He knew what happened to those with questions. 

"I can assure you I’ve never seen anything like it before," Aziraphale answered. The black hole tugged on Aziraphale's essence gently and he gave into its gravity, easing closer to the edge of it.

"It's expanding," Gabriel said. "Can you stop it?" 

"I wouldn't have any idea how," Aziraphale admitted.

A pulsating star swirled closer, drawn in like Aziraphale. Once it crossed into the anomaly's realm, the star spiralled in orbit. A tail of bright light streamed behind it to create an iris of gold. The star floated closer into the black hole's center and suddenly exploded.

"It looks like it's...eating the skies, growing as it consumes," Aziraphale finished, stunned. He eased closer, unable to resist.

"Careful," Gabriel said. "We wouldn't want our newly appointed Guardian of the Eastern Gate to be discorporated before he can be stationed." 

Aziraphale's lips pursed. He despaired his new assignment that took him back to soldiering, instead of documenting, writing, and reading.

The creator's constellation fingerprints were embedded on the event horizon as a potter's signature. Long slender hands had sculpted this cosmic entity, the clay of their creation freshly glazed and warm from the kiln. A shudder worked through Aziraphale as he traced the dips and strokes of that Fallen hand, laying his own wide square fingertips along the curved indentures of the potter, the painter, the artist.

A new kind of gravity tugged at him. His endless eyes blinked away from the infinite fractals of the universe to all focus on this one. Foresight snaked towards him and he trembled under its coiling might. Gabriel continued to talk, his voice a static background drone.

Aziraphale trembled, for when he looked into the eye of this devouring abyss, he felt his future swirling inside it. Somehow, that abyss—that future—was looking back at him.


	9. Joan of Arc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter artwork by @Papipoppy.

The Bentley's glovebox housed sunglasses that Crowley hadn't worn in fifty years. Yanking a set out, she used her teeth to unbend the arms and shoved the shades up her nose. The world darkened in a familiar way, but with the shadows of her wings flickering in and out of the physical plane and filling the backseat, the additional darkness didn't bother her. Old walls, old armor. She clenched the steering wheel.

Her raw demonic form pulsed and cracked just beneath her skin. Scales roughened the back of her hands. Her red locks squirmed with a life of their own. Underneath it all, she remained a being of the vast, an ancient creation who'd held planets in her once-celestial palm, and now, having to track down her own fucking wife over the span of Earth—an orb that could fit in her pocket—made her simmer with rage. What would it finally take for Crowley to fully emerge from this human shell as her titan self, her slit eye blocking the sun, and pluck Aziraphale from the grasp of her kidnappers? There were endless nebulas to hide in, the Milky Way was a glimmering pathway of stars they could dance—fuck, gavotte, why not?—across. Crowley could keep them safe within her coils and nothing,  _ nothing, _ would hurt them again.

The canisters of holy water sloshed in the back of the car as she took a sharp turn. Fred's fear lingered behind like a plume of too-rich exhaust fumes. Leaving behind messes had always been Crowley’s  _ modus operandi _ , even if it was unintentional. Unfortunate to have rattled his sanity so, but she needed allies. For so long, it had just been her and Aziraphale.

After all, desecration wasn't exactly  _ new _ . The consecrated grounds of churchyards and blessed earth saddled up beside acres leaking evil from mass murders and serial killer lairs. Sometime in the 1910s, the two of them had trod over such soil on a mission to cancel each other out, newly reunited. Crowley never forgot the way Aziraphale swayed, his hand gripping Crowley's suit jacket tight enough to break the fabric, the way his face had gone green with nausea.v

A hiss slipped between her teeth considering what being sprayed in the face with such corruption had done to Aziraphale. The venom sacs above her fangs felt full and heavy, pressing an ache through her teeth. The Bentley roared through London as the sun set, pistons spitting hellfire and spark plugs lubricated with brimstone.

Crowley didn't care. The glowing golden-bright at the end of her tunnel was slowly slipping away, washing her in memories of sensing that specific brand of divinity in Paris during the Reign of Terror, of a starless night during the Blitz. Of the flaming heat of a bookshop when that golden-bright spark had truly disappeared, leaving Crowley crawling back on her belly in grief.

"Fucking demons," she muttered, wondering who had been sent to take her angel. "Who gave the order? Beelzebub? Hastur?" Whoever it was, she'd spill enough holy water to make them suffer a fate worse than Ligur.

Crowley careened the car down the dilapidated commercial center, the taste of strangled divinity and strengthened thrum of evil leading her to park in front of a boarded-up warehouse. Some kind of technology and research center—the long windows had either been smashed or covered with paper, the concrete and metal siding rusted and stained pollution-gray. The Hell inside her bayed again, sensing a strangled miracle, their prey close, their prize just out of reach.

Stepping out of the Bentley, a snarl marking her mouth, she inhaled the desecration filling the air, like being surrounded by the mouth-watering scent of raw steak sizzling in butter. A holy water canister in each hand, she recklessly unlocked the warehouse doors with a miracle, kicked the door open with her foot, and stepped inside.

The quiet black entryway opened up into a large laboratory. Dust covered shelves full of wires and equipment, glass cabinets housed beakers, whiteboards with pinned up engineering blueprints filled her eyes. An artificial intelligence lab? A place where robots were spliced together, where the human soul was taken apart to catalogue its bits—yes, Crowley remembered an uproar of discourse regarding the ethics and morality of creating sentient robots. The company responsible had shut down so long ago because of some scandal involving sex bots for the wealthy elite.  _ One of yours? _ Aziraphale had commented, the early morning casting her hair in shades of gold as she swiped through the news on Crowley's tablet. Crowley had rolled her eyes.  _ Of course not. When have I had a spare moment to fuck with metal-heads when I've spent all my time wrapped around you in every way possible? _

But suddenly, an overwhelming divinity hit her and broke the memory, a cold sort of non-Aziraphale holiness saturating the room. Crowley barely strengthened her grip on the canisters before they clattered on the tiled floor. The trademark scorch of Hell was absent. Crowley forced down the lump in her throat—did she have it wrong? Was this Heaven all along?

_ Reevaluate. _ She slithered further into the room, seeking cover behind lab benches and abandoned machines, frantically wondering how she hadn't been detected yet. Just beyond, she caught the glow of multiple screens hanging from the ceiling, cobbled together with wires and spare parts. Two humans studied the moving wavelengths and static punctuating images of...Heaven? Satan above, was that Aziraphale? Centuries younger and male, his mouth moving silently just like a black and white film. Crowley's heart clenched in sudden fear.  _ Oh, sweetheart, where are you? _

One human pointed to the flickering screen before punching buttons on a handheld device. The picture strengthened, specific colors bleeding through the monochrome. Text typed in the screen's lower third. Crowley put the canisters down, let her bottom half transform fully into her serpent self, and struck the humans. Tail wrapped around the throat of one. Hands pinched over the nose and mouth of the other. Both undulated in her grip, writhing for air, but she held them down until the pulse of their hearts stuttered against her scales and palm. And as waited until they went limp, but still breathing, she saw what lay beyond the screens.

A circle of desecrated ground. The archangel Gabriel standing at its edge, his...no,  _ her _ head lowered in concentration. Wires stringing from her temple to...to...

_ Oh, my beloved. What have they done to you? _

A moan of despair clogged Crowley's throat. She pushed it down. Crowley wasn't a warrior. She was a spinner of nebulas, a creator of burning hydrogen into helium light, but at the sight of her wife—chained to a cement block by her wrists, the connecting wires plugged into a bloodied hole drilled into her temple—she knew she would obliterate anyone.

The desecrated ground acted like gangrene to Aziraphale's divinity. Her legs had deteriorated, leaving only the wispy golden outline of where they used to be. Hair pale and fragile, like spun glass. Hollow cheeks, spots of putrefaction dotting her neck and through her ripped clothes, her hands curled small like a dead swallow's. And her wings...

Nothing but a skeleton.

Heaven had left the principality to burn at the stake, like poor Joan of Arc, charred and disfigured, yet somehow still beautiful, still full of Her grace. Crowley considered shoving Gabriel face-first in the soil, burying the archangel in revenge.

But Crowley was not a warrior.

Holy water in each hand, she slithered around the circle to the far end away from Gabriel. Gabriel's face scrunched up as if in concern, as if she'd caught Crowley's demonic scent, but she remained submerged in whatever mind-scramble she was doing to Aziraphale. Barely breathing, Crowley positioned the holy water canisters along the circle's edge and unscrewed the caps. Her fangs tore at her lips in frustration. She couldn't drench Aziraphale with holy water and expect the angel to escape on her own. Crowley couldn't pour holy water over the desecration and hope that Aziraphale would be strong enough to crawl out of it. As soon as the blessed water hit the floor, the demon was useless. As much as she hated it, the desecration might work in Crowley's favor. Either way, her wife was disintegrating before her eyes.

Soil and bones rubbed against her scales as she glided across the ground, pulling what strength she could from the evil permeating the air. Her tail swept around Aziraphale in a tight coil, her raven wings emerging in a powerful sweep to surround and protect. Tears pricked her eyes as her hand hovered over Aziraphale's cheek, trembling to touch the angel's fragile form.  _ You're so still. _

"It's me," she whispered.

Blue eyes flickered underneath spiderweb thin eyelids, lashes pale as snow, her pink mouth chapped and whitened. Crowley's hand fluttered over the sanctified fog that formed Aziraphale's legs—could she pick her up? Would the divinity linking Aziraphale's body together hold? Crowley gently touched the manacles around Aziraphale's wrists and glanced at Gabriel. The archangel's hands clenched into fists, but otherwise, she hadn't moved.

"Be strong, sweetheart," Crowley whispered to Aziraphale. "It's just one demonic miracle. Like a needle pinch. Over in a moment."

A surge of power cracked the manacles open. Crowley wished Aziraphale had winced, grunted, pouted—Satan below,  _ something. _ But her angel remained motionless. The fear spiking Crowley's heart felt too similar to finding the bookshop burned, the world devoid of Aziraphale's light.

"One last thing." Crowley's voice wobbled. "This one will hurt. Trust me, okay?"

Golden blood smothered the node attached to Aziraphale's temple. Crowley's sharp claws found the edge, gripped it tight, and ripped the wire out of Aziraphale's head.

The angel convulsed. Across from them, Gabriel threw her head back in pain and gasped, landing hard on her knees.

"Aziraphale. Angel, wake up. I found you. I'm here." Crowley frantically stroked Aziraphale's cheek, and watched in horror as dark lines appeared against the angel's skin—the demonic influence of Crowley's being quickening the desecration eating at the angel. Crowley bit back a sob. No matter what love existed between them, facts were facts. Crowley was an occult, damned thing, and at this point, just another piece of dynamite blowing up the crumbling pillar of Aziraphale's ethereal existence.

She couldn't pick up her wife, couldn't carry her out of danger. Her mere presence was hurting the angel even more.  _ Damn you,  _ Crowley thought at God.  _ You've made me fucking useless. _

_ "You." _

Crowley peered through the arc of her wings, her gold coin eyes matching the wrath glowing from Gabriel.

"You ruin everything." Gabriel stumbled to her feet. Fury painted her words—a recognizable tone of enraged unanswered questions. Those questions had to go somewhere, Crowley knew, they had to be blamed on someone. "I've been inside Aziraphale's mind," Gabriel snarled, "and you've tainted her since the beginning, haven't you? No wonder she became worthless at her job. No wonder she turned so weak and soft. She used to be a great warrior, you know. Before you. Her flaming sword used to look small in her hands."

"And that's why Heaven wants her dead so badly?" Crowley scoffed, her tail beginning to uncoil slowly and reach across the desecrated ground. The archangel couldn't touch them, not without suffering the same effects eating away at Aziraphale.

"Heaven doesn't give a shit about you," Gabriel said, "but I do. I spent my life supervising that principality. And then, she simply defies everything we stand for and gets away with it? She doesn't Fall? You both get to live out the rest of your lives in blissful harmony for disobedience while the rest of us suffer? While the rest of the demons are still damned?" Gabriel threw her head back with a laugh sharp as broken glass. "It's not fucking fair."

"Life isn't fair," Crowley said. "What, are you Hell's demon resource department? I thought you looked forward to giving us monsters what we deserved come Armageddon."

"I looked forward to doing my sacred duty." Gabriel nearly screamed. "But what does that mean anymore? Can there be..shared power between our kind? Why are you allowed to be together? What did you give her so that she could withstand our execution by hellfire?"

"I love her," Crowley said, suddenly desperate that Gabriel understand that. Her tail scooped around the holy water canisters. "I didn't corrupt her. I didn't ruin or destroy or maim. I only loved her."

"You fucked her, is what you did. In every sense of the word. She can never come home."

And there it was, laid out in simple, devastating words. The greatest fear of Crowley's existence pitted against the greatest, and only, love of her long life. The firsthand knowledge of what it meant to be thrown out of Heaven, cast from eternal grace, cut off from Her presence. Aziraphale hadn't been thrown out per se, but she'd certainly turned her back on it. What if, one day, she wanted to go back? What if she became homesick for the endless wash of Her light? What if Aziraphale's nightmares consisted of pounding her fist against Heaven's locked doors to escape her Earthly fate, while the great serpent of Eden begged to be taken back with her red belly and ghastly eyes, and wouldn't take no for an answer?

_ I'm nothing but fast cars and terrified plants and black jackets and hellish expectations. I'm nothing but awful want, demanding yearning, endless asking, and when I fell, She didn't just let me boil in sulfur like the others, she took away my arms and legs, made me crawl on my belly to really make me feel it. My punishment was different. Special. And I don't know why, but I must've been the worst of the lot to be quartered in such a way. _

_ I started the Arrangement. I burnt your letters from Heaven, without your consent, terrified that they called you home, even more frightened that you might obey. Even later, I pushed you into switching into what I thought you should be, all in the name of safety. When will you say no more? When will you say you've had enough? Once, it was too fast, but someday it will be I'm done. How can you love me when even She doesn't? _

Crowley took a deep breath and thought of a question on a cliff, of rain sealing a promise. "Maybe. But I've tried to make her happy. And that's more than you or God ever did."

Her long tail, curled against the canisters, lashed out and spilled the holy water, sending her own destruction pouring over desecrated ground toward her and her angel. 


	10. A Principality’s Wrath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter artwork by @Songbird-Of-Eden.

_ Tell me why I feel this way. A Judas kiss couldn't feel this treacherous. The tangled red lifelines once strung to me have been cut. _

Wetness against her lips. It tasted blessed, infused with a sliver of unknown strength like light cascading through the dark. Eyelashes fluttered. Ichor stained the back of her throat. She knew, with a sudden soldier's intellect, that she'd been horribly wounded, her body scattered and broken. Danger lurked around her.

She was a messenger built for war. Her ruling was to defend, but somehow, she had lost her sword in the midst of battle. A surge of adrenaline flowed through her, her heart a pounding drum, reminding her that she'd somehow allowed herself to be bound to this puny, useless form.

Her hand slammed onto the ground, sinking into the mud, and she thrust the final tendrils of her power into the earth. She'd been chosen to rule Eden once and defend its walls like a king, and there, clothed in white and gold, she'd whispered to the thrumming life of its roses, sung lullabies to its newborn trees, spoke poems to the eager vines.  _ Help me now, _ she begged to the earth.  _ My armor has fallen, my sword taken from my hand _ .

Her human form shed and her long-confined angelic body shook with freedom. Her wings, once poisoned, unfolded and trembled, too long imprisoned on an ethereal plane. Her crown crawled up and over her human eyes, leaving her dizzy as the eyes on her feathers and along her body blinked open. The past, present, and endless future expanded before her fractal eyesight as a grounding and familiar presence. Moss crept alongside the foundation of tree trunks to repair her fractured legs. White flowers pulsated within the holes punctured through her body. Metallic parts from this...confining battleground collected along her shoulders, leaving her with armor of automated body parts, chain links, reshaped masks, gears and hinges.

Oh, to flap her wings. Heather, lavender, aster, and dahlias acted as the backbone for her feathers and spines. Her sword lifted, her stance perfected as she felt the rising power of her enemy ready to meet her.

"Principality, lower your sword."

An archangel's command. She should obey, but the earth inside her trembled with the negative. The remembrance of agony lightninged across her mind, the tender scramble of her past being looted through, the draining gnaw of the corrupt at her holy self. "You've overstepped, Archangel," she bellowed. "You've raised arms against your kin." An angelic cry to arms erupted from her throat, and she swung her sword.  _ Attack. _

Gabriel's human body shucked away within seconds, her celestial spear matching the ragged edge of Aziraphale's blade. The ring between them pealed like a bell.

"Raised arms against my kin?" Gabriel screeched. "After what you've done? You were sentenced to death, Principality.  _ To death." _

Their weapons collided with sparks of light. Aziraphale couldn't recall the filth Gabriel spewed, but she did remember Gabriel's stare of hatred at her across a hallway of grieving angels, Gabriel's disdain amongst the newly consecrated grounds of a black hole, of Gabriel's wrath directed at her across the first war in Heaven.

"You cannot fight me. To fight me is to fight Heaven. Are you waging war on Heaven, Principality?" Gabriel sounded exalted as they matched strikes, the annoyances of the battleground falling beneath the might of their wings, their swirling rings and eyes.

"You do not represent Heaven," Aziraphale thundered, her voice like the rising waves, the collision of dark matter. "I'm not fighting Heaven.  _ I'm fighting you." _

"You'll Fall." Gabriel's wings expanded, dazzling Aziraphale with starlight.

"You don't decide who Falls, Archangel," Aziraphale shouted. "You waged war with me and I haven't fallen yet. I don't intend to. Whatever this is, God has nothing to do it with it. This is between you and me."

Azirphale swung her broadsword, the heavy weight of war's glory rendering her momentarily deaf. Bones, branches, and wires fell from her weapon with each swing, the zing of released electricity and sharp technological burn contaminating the air as the battle continued.

A shiver of anticipation fluttered through her with the high of victory. Aziraphale felt unhinged, rabid with the want to win. Her body remembered this: her wings calculated advantages against her enemy, keeping her balance and spinning her elegantly to avoid Gabriel's thrust and hits. Her earth-legs soaked up the water from the mud like a plant. Gabriel's eyes had begun to widen with unease as Aziraphale's unflagging strength promised the archangel's downfall.

_ You would've set me on fire and watched me burn. _

The future played out before her: she would slay the archangel, take her place amongst her brothers and sisters, be filled with the heavenly chorus of their song. Let her ribs be the wind chimes that Her holy word flowed, let her iron bones reverberate with hymns, let the psalms sing from her throat, let her skeleton contribute to creation's song with the unique tone only she could make—

Her blade sliced Gabriel's side. Aziraphale shrieked with battle fury, and arched to strike once again. Gabriel ducked and snarled, her wings contracting inward as she exploded up through the roof, disappearing into the sky. Tucked safe back in Heaven. Debris rained down on Aziraphale—slate and pink insulation, concrete and glass.

_ Coward. _

And through the haze, she heard her name being called. She turned, taller than the mountains and crafted by Her hand, to sense a huddled demonic presence. It pulled at Aziraphale with a might greater than gravity, a black hole tugging her closer, wrapped in the thread she'd been following for the whole of her existence.

_ Aziraphale, angel, sweetheart, listen to me, just listen to me, help me… _


	11. Into the Eyes of the Future

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter artwork by @Papipoppy.

_ Snakes aren't birds. _

Crowley perched on the cement block, toes curled against the edge, barely balanced. She'd transformed and leapt on it after toppling the canisters, the wrinkled fruit pit of terror lodged under her ribs sprouting hope as the guttering ember of Aziraphale's divinity finally caught on fire. And the angel had risen—stripped of her shell, paralyzing Crowley down to her core, overflowing with rapture and wrath to engage an archangel in battle.

Now, holy water mixed with the desecrated ground into a slick slush like oil, ready to clog Crowley's outspread wings. She flapped, tried to gain momentum for enough lift to escape the death trap surrounding her, but ended up swaying back on the concrete slab, desperate for purchase. Her legs shook, her spine wobbled, all her angles and twists aching to bend.  _ Snakes weren't fucking birds.  _ "Angel, sweetheart, listen to me, okay? There's bloody holy water everywhere and I need you to..."

And the principality Aziraphale, guardian of the Eastern Gate, pivoted away from studying the ceiling hole Gabriel had escaped through and fixated all her eyes on Crowley.

_Drowning._ _She was drowning._ Eyelashes swept over ocean-wide blues shining with madness. Green-shouldered orbs, sleepy with the future or past, blinked at her. Storm gray irises burned with righteous fury. Either way, their shattered, fractal stare left the demon ablaze, lost, and enthralled. _Oh, angel._ Did the prophets and sons of God feel this way in the presence of Her revealed messengers—utterly enamored, ready to fall to her knees, fighting sudden swells of heat?

"Aziraphale." Her gorgeous, petrifying wife. Crowley had never seen her so raw in the form God gave her. And Crowley was thunderstruck. "Satan above, you're beautiful."

The angel cocked her head to the side and she stepped closer, her drawn sword still arched in defense. She looked like she walked a tightrope strung between them.

Fear cut through the want pulsating underneath Crowley's skin as she remembered the desecration's damage. The unhinged wariness coloring Aziraphale took on a new meaning—maybe the corruption hadn't just pockmarked her divinity, but put cigarette burns throughout her mind.

"Angel," Crowley whispered, her voice high and tinged with worry. "It's me. Remember? Your wily old serpent."

The sword didn't lower. Aziraphale continued to step carefully toward Crowley, as if following the cracks on the floor. And maybe Crowley's life would end the way it began, the loop beginning with the demon striking up a conversation with a do-not-touch principality and now, instead of finding shelter under Aziraphale's wing, the angel would smite her as she should have done then, so long ago. 

Crowley banished the thought, steadied her shaking thighs. "I'm your dear. Your darling. Your—your gorgeous thing and sweet creature and beloved and," she choked, "every ridiculous pet name under the sun. Remember?"

"This thread led to you," Aziraphale said quietly. Awe overwhelmed Crowley as the angel's sharp diamond teeth glimmered underneath the blooming rose of her mouth. The attraction gutted her, like having every sensory memory over six thousand years rip into her at once. More than running her fingers through Aziraphale's loose curls freely for the first time, more than kissing the angel senseless in a bar, deeper than that warm agony building in her spine when she had the angel in her, tongue over her, bent in half with thrusts.

"It's Crowley," she said with a disbelieving laugh. "Darling, you can't have forgotten me. What...what else was there before me? Nothing but bloody Gabriel, the ass. Boring old Heaven."

"The black hole," Aziraphale said. "You have the same pull."

Words died in Crowley's mouth. "How do you know about that?"

"I touched it." Aziraphale rubbed her fingers together as if feeling something delicate, imaginary. "Catalogued it. My hands have been where yours have been."

Crowley shuddered, rocking her on the cement block. Satan above, she was next to true death and Aziraphale talked like that, making Crowley desperate to shed her mortal form, wrap her demonic self around the angel, somehow make them one. This wasn't human attraction—this was her fallen angel soul seeing the love of her life and wanting her.

"That was you," Aziraphale said. The tip of her blade touched the ground. "You laid out the thread for me to follow." She paused, and her eyes blinked all at once, as if clearing a fog. Crowley had seen this before, Aziraphale throwing off Heaven's yoke. "I don't...remember who you are, but I know I love you. Whatever you want, I'll give it to you. I've been following your lines for so long."

"I want you." Crowley strained up as much as possible. The glaze of her being had finally cracked, revealing the brown ruin beneath the polish.

"I didn't get lost," Aziraphale whispered, and she tilted her head, as if waiting for rejection.

"Come here." Crowley's resolve slipped. "My love, you're hurt and we're both so scared. Come here."

Aziraphale's sword clattered in the mud. She bent, let Crowley's legs wrap around her waist, her arms around the angel's neck. Crowley breathed a sigh of relief as Aziraphale lifted her up and away from the holy water. The Hell inside her twisted, trapped and undulating closer to the surface. Her claws cupped Aziraphale's face, thumbs stroking the smooth crown covering where the angel's human eyes would be.

Again, she felt that shift, a sudden rush that made her wings ache to unfurl and rub and bend as all Aziraphale's eyes focused on her.

"You're watching me," Crowley gasped, and she didn't just mean now, she meant in all places, in all times, in all universes. Her back hit the wall and the angel crowded around her, eyed wings cupping around them on all sides.

"Mm," Aziraphale agreed. "Past, present, and future. I see us, always together." A flash of sharp teeth. "Old serpent."

"Oh, thank somebody," Crowley murmured and kissed Aziraphale with all the fear that had ridden her since seeing the angel convulsing on the Archive's floor. "Scared me out of my fucking mind, angel. Falling ill. Getting kidnapped. Thinking you wouldn't remember me."

"This helps," Aziraphale said, hands gripping Crowley tighter and nuzzling into her neck.

"The things you put me through. The things you make me deal with," Crowley muttered. "God, Aziraphale, all your eyes. Drive me wild."

Under Crowley's kisses, Aziraphale's lips parted in a pleased grin. "Really, Crowley."

The familiarity eased the knot in her stomach, her name gentle on Aziraphale's tongue. "Yes, really, angel."

Aziraphale's fingers wandered over her skin, caressing the fissures radiating across her skin, a golden-rimmed blackness pulsing from the breaks. How long had she been cooped up inside this mortal form? How long had it been since she'd seen the burned crisp of her Fallen flesh?

_ Too long, _ Hell whispered inside her. Only, this Hell wasn't something separate—it was Crowley to the core, something to be added to the long list of her defining characteristics. Crowley, demon wife to an avenging angel, who loved in that worshipful way, who had a little bit of Hell resonating in her soul.

"You know what I thought when I first saw that black hole?" Aziraphale asked, pressing her hips into the cradle of Crowley's.

The demon threw her head back with a small moan, knowing that if she slipped, just a little, her life would be in danger. Holy water still lingered at their feet. "No—no idea," Crowley whispered as Aziraphale began to roam, light thumbing her neck, fangs dragging over her collarbones, the gentle brush of timelines looping around her like Jupiter's rings. Aziraphale's fractal eyesight shared endless ways in which Crowley had been loved: from old and ancient over centuries of waiting, to fresh and new at the Ritz, to familiar and cherished in the South Downs, to irreplaceable and inseparable at the Archives.

"The other angels declared it a damned thing even though it was made with blessed hands," Aziraphale continued and her lips laid down just over Crowley's heart. "I didn't think so. It felt very consecrated, holy with love. Just like you."

Crowley whimpered as Aziraphale peeled the rest of Crowley's human form apart, let her light encircle the burned-out eyes, the iridescent black scales, the hot lick of hellfire, and thrust to fill the darkness of Crowley's being. Hell cooed and twisted, delighted and overcome. It had been so long since Crowley had made love in her true form. "I forgot," Crowley babbled in Aziraphale's ear, "I forgot it feels like this."

"I might have given my sword away, but I found you," the angel whispered, just before she became bright and segmented as the stars, spreading the twinkling pinpoints of her being into the black sky of Crowley. Amidst the crashing throes filling her and spilling over, sending her clutching at the angel, she wondered if the whole point of her existence wasn't to be star-bound, but angel-chosen. Aziraphale consumed her with those eyes and the light inside her created a rhapsody: tinkling the xylophone of her spine down to the timpani rumble of her sacrum pushing her orgasm out in a wave.

Aziraphale licked Crowley's cursed skin. "Darling, I remember you." She sounded shaky. "It's you and it's me and it's us. I'd never leave you for Heaven, didn't I tell you at our altar, I choose you forever and always."

The eyes around Crowley slid away, leaving two beautiful blues back in front. Crowley kissed their eyelids, her angel looking like a breakable piece that needed mindful care. "Let's go home," Crowley whispered, tucking their corporeal forms around the ethereal light and occult darkness like a blanket. "It's a ruined mess, but when did we ever need anything perfect, hmm? We can rest. Even She did, on the seventh day. Even She did."


	12. Who Thwarted Who?

When Crowley woke alone, she fell out of bed.

Fell off the mattress, more like. When they'd parked in front of the ruined Archives, Fred had dumped a series of government investigation forms and news interview requests through the open window and hightailed it out of there. Aziraphale had studied her ruined Archives with the eye of an archaeologist, uncovering the lost key to something once beloved that could be salvaged only with much work and attention. Crowley had miracled the collapsed beams off the bed, plumped the mattress with a finger snap, and then she'd serpent-wrapped around the still-glowing angel.

"No nightmares," she mumbled into Aziraphale's hair, but it didn't matter, because Aziraphale had already fallen asleep, tucked in the curve of Crowley's arms.

Now, she frantically checked her phone. No messages. A sticky strip of glue smeared across the screen. She shouted Aziraphale's name before slamming her fist in frustration onto the jagged chunks of the floorboard. A mini sticky note floated up from the mattress and Crowley scrambled to yank it out of the air. Her yellow eyes devoured the itty bitty script written in a familiar, if cramped, flourish.

_ Gone to Westminster. Don't fret.  _

_ All my <3, A _

Fucking miniature sticky notes. What kind of message could someone leave on such a small scrap of worthless paper? She ground her teeth together, hoped the notes cried out in despair as they burned in the seventh circle of Hell for their uselessness. She touched the cold side of the bed, bunched the sheets in her fist, and wished she could clamber back under the covers. But sleep had become impossible without Aziraphale. Who had decided the break of dawn was a great time to commune with God, of all people.

Exhaustion pulled at her as she threw her hair up in a bun and drove to the old abbey, parking haphazardly on the sidewalk. Armed guards checked fingerprints of approved visitors and preservationists sprayed the graying exterior with chemicals smelling like fake pine. Crowley bought a coffee, snapped her fingers to ensure the drones canvassing the area would be attacked by ducks, and slumped on a park bench, settling in for a long wait. The tingle of ground consecrated centuries ago nipped at her feet, but she remained far enough away that it didn't bother. Tourists meandered in and out of the abbey grounds. The sun crept higher in the sky. At one point, bored, she slithered over to study Boudicca riding triumphant on a chariot. "Get out while you can," Crowley told her, sipping her Americano. “We’ll be underwater completely soon.”

When Aziraphale finally emerged from the abbey's walls, she looked awful. Dark circles deepened under her eyes, her skin wan, curls pulled back with pins, and against all odds, dressed in one of Crowley's band t-shirts miracled long and large underneath her tan blazer. And good lord...were those leggings? Crowley waved her over to the bench and Aziraphale's look of exhausted appreciation made Crowley's heart sing.

"Stevie Nicks, good choice," she said as Aziraphale slumped down beside her and leaned in for a quick kiss. "Looks lovely."

"Don't mock. My closet had collapsed." Aziraphale slipped her hand in Crowley's. Crowley hid her pleasure with the coffee cup, feeling warm at this open and sudden display of affection.

Crowley waited, shared her drink, and waited some more. After a millennium, a quick glance at her phone revealed that only six minutes had passed. She sighed. It never took long for her to break. "Did God answer all your questions?" she asked and winced at the acid dripping from the question.

"I wasn't asking questions." Aziraphale took another drink, her nose screwing up in a distasteful grimace. "Blech. Bitter."

"Don’t blame the beans," Crowley said, tapping the lid. "Tourist trap coffee. Not even real coffee. What do you mean you weren't asking questions?"

"I was giving thanks," Aziraphale said softly.

"For what?" Crowley smirked, her legs shooting out, her arm flung out for dramatics sake. "Nearly being destroyed? For Gabriel sic'ing Heaven on us? For losing our home yet again? For climbing every mountain, fording every stream?"

Aziraphale's smile was small, secret. "No, darling. For you."

"Come again?"

Aziraphale squeezed their clasped hands and she wiggled closer into the crook of Crowley's arms. "I gave thanks for your bravery, quick wits, creativity. For you loving me the way you do, for giving me something that will never fade. God couldn't have created a more perfect creature than you, my dear."

Crowley thanked the blessed sense she had to slip on a pair of sunglasses before this conversation. God had nothing to do with that—a wholly serpent idea. She swallowed hard and stared at Westminster’s yawning windows. "You're not worried about Falling?"

_ I would've asked about that. Did all that desecration tarnish your divinity? Why couldn't they leave us alone? What have we ever done to them? _

"I was when I woke," Aziraphale said, a frown appearing between her pale brows as she watched an avian flock harass a drone until it committed suicide by nosediving into the ocean. "Checked my wings. Looked for demonic signs. I wonder what kind of animal I'd be."

"What?"

"Well, you're a snake, maybe I'd be an owl." She worried her lip between her teeth. "A raven? I could make bird-friends and we could be called a murder, how ghoulish."

"Angel."

"Not a rat, I hope. I won't just eat anything, despite what you may think. Or an earthworm. Necessary for the ecosystem, but a touch slow in the comprehension department."

_ "Aziraphale." _

"Oh, alright. Our fight was between Gabriel and me," Aziraphale said, looking away. "Not with Heaven. Certainly not with Her. There was no reason for my ethereal nature to be in danger. Gabriel and I have always had a rocky relationship."

"Could've fooled me," Crowley said, and then softer, "I almost lost you."

Aziraphale turned to Crowley and no moon, no star, no Eden-flower existed as beautiful as she. Crowley felt breathless as the sunlight lit the inner rings of Aziraphale's eyes, illuminating the fury-gray and mad-green behind the steadfast blue. "But you didn't. And you never will," she said.

"You make me do stupid things," Crowley growled. She couldn't help it. Her hand cupped the angel's jaw, stroked along the cupid bow mouth with reverence. Damned thing that she was, Earth’s menace even, but she wasn’t made of stone, not with Aziraphale looking so lovely dressed in her clothes.

"Love makes you do stupid things," Aziraphale corrected.

"I poured holy water over where I stood, that's the kind of idiocy you throw me into."

"You unlucky soldier. What can I do to make it up to you?"

"Oh, I don't know." Crowley inched down so that her head was pillowed in Aziraphale's lap. Legs flung over the park bench handles, swaying back and forth. "I've been abused, forgotten, neglected."

"Mmm, poor you." Aziraphale eased Crowley's hair out of the bun and began running her fingers through the wild red locks.

"If you really think about it, I've actually been thwarting all of your wiles," Crowley said.

"What an interesting interpretation of events."

"I might need to do something terribly wicked. See an action film. Look for a new  _ posh  _ apartment, maybe. Fill it with chrome appliances. See if there's an underground bookshop that needs a new owner."

"Sounds positively devious. Only a rapscallion like you could pull it off, but I'm quite put out that I'm going to have to disagree with every one of those plans."

"How so?"

"I was thinking more of a night in. I've been missing my wife."

"I could come around to the idea," Crowley said drowsily. "Tempt me, lover. You know you’re cherished by an evil woman." The sun warmed her face and her eyes slid shut. Aziraphale's touch felt safe and sweet, the adoration radiating from the angel making the Hell inside stretch and purr, fed and sated. A soft, ancient tune emerged from Aziraphale's throat, and she sang a song of lovers in a soprano fit for Heaven, as clear and lovely as a nightingale. 


End file.
